Cubs 6, Red Sox 0: Back-to-back jacks… twice!

The Cubs played long ball Saturday, and held the visitors from Boston scoreless.

Michael Busch and Kyle Tucker went deep as the first two Cubs batters of the game Saturday evening against the Red Sox.

And then in the eighth, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ian Happ did the same, also back-to-back. The four home runs helped the Cubs to a 6-0 victory over Boston, along with stellar pitching from Shōta Imanaga.

The two back-to-back home run events tied a franchise record. From BCB’s JohnW53:

With the first-inning homers by Busch and Tucker, and the eighth-inning homers by Crow-Armstrong and Happ, the Cubs have tied their team record for most back-to-back homers in a season, 12 — with 64 games to go. They set the record in 2004.

Here’s Busch’s blast — on Brayan Bello’s first pitch of the game [VIDEO].

That was Busch’s 20th, giving the Cubs three players with 20 or more. One more note on Busch’s blast:

Five pitches later, Tucker made the score 2-0 with his 18th [VIDEO].

In the second, the Cubs extended the score to 3-0. Dansby Swanson led off with a walk and went to second on a single by Nico Hoerner. Reese McGuire forced Hoerner at second, with Swanson taking third.

Dansby scored on this sac fly by Vidal Bruján [VIDEO].

While all this was going on, Imanaga was dealing, He had some traffic on the bases in the first couple of innings, but settled down and allowed just one baserunner until there were two out in the seventh, at one point retiring 11 Red Sox in a row. He allowed a pair of hits in the seventh, but got out of it with a pop fly to short right. Overall he allowed just five hits and a walk and just three Boston runners got past first base.

Shōta struck out five [VIDEO].

Here’s more on Imanaga’s outing [VIDEO].

The Cubs are now 9-4 in Imanaga’s starts this year and overall in his 42 career starts, they’er 32-10. He’s still well short of having enough innings to qualify (he has 75, he’d currently need 98), but if he did have enough, his 2.40 ERA would rank fourth in the National League. More on Shōta’s start from BCB’s JohnW53:

Shōta Imanaga’s start was the fourth by a Cub this season of at least seven innings with no runs allowed.

Justin Steele went seven on April 7 at home against the Rangers. Cade Horton went seven on July 3 at home against the Guardians. And Matthew Boyd went eight last Saturday at New York against the Yankees.

The Cubs added an insurance run in the seventh on a solo home run by Matt Shaw [VIDEO].

The home run, Shaw’s third, was his first at Wrigley Field. Shaw was batting for Bruján in that at-bat and later singled. That, hopefully, is a good sign for him going forward.

Brad Keller threw the eighth and struck out all three Red Sox he faced, and that, along with his strong outing Friday, are good signs for him after a couple of rough outings before the All-Star break.

The Cubs put the game away in the eighth. PCA led off the inning with his 26th home run [VIDEO].

Six pitches later, Ian Happ joined the back-to-back fun [VIDEO].

Incidentally, PCA also stole a base earlier in this game, his 28th [VIDEO].

That puts PCA four home runs and two stolen bases short of a 30/30 season — and we still have 11 days remaining in July.

With the game out of a save situation, Ryan Brasier entered to throw the ninth. He allowed a dribbler for a two-out hit after striking out the first two Red Sox hitters, but got the final out on a ground ball to short.

Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].

One last note from John:

With the Cubs’ win and the Tigers’ loss, the Cubs have the best record in baseball, 59-39 to the Tigers’ 59-40.

The Brewers beat the Dodgers late Saturday night, so they are also 59-40, and remain a game behind the Cubs in the NL Central.

And get this: the Cubs’ 59-39 record is the same as it was through 98 games in 2016.

The Cubs also were 59-39 in 1977. The last season in which they were better through 98 games was 1969, at 60-37-1. Before that: 1945, at 62-35-1.

So the Cubs take the series from the Red Sox, and winning the first two games was important, because Sunday’s will be a tough matchup, with Garrett Crochet going for Boston. Cade Horton, who’s certainly had his moments in his rookie year, will start for the Cubs. Game time Sunday is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.