Wild one: Cubs draw 6 bases-loaded walks in 5th
PITTSBURGH — The Chicago Cubs drew six bases-loaded walks in the fifth inning against the Pirates on Saturday, the most by a major league team in a single inning in 65 years.
The last team to draw that many free passes with runners at every base in one inning was the Chicago White Sox, who had eight in the seventh inning on April 22, 1959.
And in the expansion era (since 1961), there has only been one other instance of a team to have at least six bases-loaded walks in a game — the Boston Red Sox, against the White Sox on May 7, 1992.
Saturday’s fifth inning began with prized Pirates rookie Paul Skenes giving up two hits, ending his big league debut. The Pirates wound up needing three more pitchers to get through the frame.
Kyle Nicolas came on, struck out two batters and hit Ian Happ with a pitch. Then it got much worse.
Nicolas threw 12 straight pitches outside the strike zone to Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch and Miles Mastrobuoni to bring in three runs.
Then Josh Fleming came in and walked Yan Gomes on five pitches before giving up an infield single to Mike Tauchman.
After a rain delay of 2 hours and 20 minutes, Fleming was pulled for Colin Holderman, who walked Seiya Suzuki on four pitches and Cody Bellinger on five to give Chicago, which trailed 6-1 entering the frame, an 8-6 lead. Holderman retired pinch hitter Nick Madrigal on a liner to end the inning.
“We had good at-bats at the beginning of it to put us in that situation, and then guys weren’t chasing,” Hoerner told reporters. “That’s what it was.”
The six walks overall tied the Cubs’ most in a single inning over the past 50 seasons. The Pirates threw 55 pitches in the frame — 20 for strikes.
Pittsburgh retook the lead with three runs in the bottom half of the fifth, courtesy of a Yasmani Grandal home run, and held on to win 10-9.
“It’s just proof that the game shows you something new every day,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It was a strange inning, and it was a big inning that got us back into the game after a big deficit. We took the lead with some more walks. We just couldn’t hold it.”
Information from Elias Sports Bureau and The Associated Press was used in this report.
