Game Recap: Cubs blank Rangers behind Steele's dominance

Dustin Riese - Senior Writer - Tuesday, April 08 2025

CHICAGO - In what was a freezing night at Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs (8-5) made things look easy against an excellent Texas Rangers (8-3). Whether it be their speed on the bases, the timely hitting, or a vintage Justin Steele outing, all of that played a role in the Cubs 7-0 victory.

Steele was the man of the hour for the Cubs as the left-hander finally started to look like the pitcher everyone expected him to be. After settling in to dominate the Athletics over the second half of his previous start, Steele upped the ante in this one as he dominated the Rangers from start to finish. The left-handed gave the Cubs seven innings of two walk eight strikeout baseball, allowing three hits and no runs as the Rangers had no answers for the southpaw.

“He was on the attack,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said about Steele during postgame. “On a night like tonight, we talked about it pregame, ‘You have to be on the attack.’ And I thought he pitched really, really well. He knew that was the plan tonight, and he executed it perfectly.”

Those are the starts the Cubs would love to see more of from their staff, and they desperately needed one in this one. Nathan Eovaldi came into this start riding a complete-game shutout last time and has been one of the best pitchers in the game since the start of the season. This was one of those games where you could tell the cold weather played a factor, as Eovaldi struggled to locate his pitches most of the night and was only able to give the Rangers 4 2/3 innings.

Texas didn't have many scoring chances throughout the game, but with a pair of runners on and two outs in the first, the Rangers had an opportunity to strike first, only to be turned away. Apart from that, the Rangers offense was non-existent as they didn't want any part of the cold conditions.

The Cubs, on the other hand, didn't mind the weather at all and with Michael Busch leading off the second inning with a double, it was the Cubs who were set up to strike as Busch advanced to third on a Dansby Swanson sacrifice bunt before coming home on the Miguel Amaya sacrifice fly to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead. Small ball was the theme of the night for the Cubs as Jon Berti was hit by an Eovaldi pitch to begin the second and went on to swipe two of the Cubs five bases in the game.

That came in handy as Ian Happ grounded one over to first, and Berti beat the throw home to extend the Cubs lead to 2-0. Chicago had a chance to break the game open later in the inning after a Seiya Suzuki single and Busch hit by pitch loaded the bases, but it was a Swanson grounder that ended the inning without any damage.

Hoping that missed opportunity didn't come back to bite them, it was an RBI triple from Busch in the bottom of the fifth that put the Cubs in front 3-0 before they put the game away in the sixth. In that inning, the Cubs went to work against Gerson Garabito, with Amaya and Pete Crow-Armstrong leading things off with a pair of singles as the Cubs had two on and no outs.

Singles played a massive role in the overall success of the Cubs throughout the night as Chicago came away with a trio of two-out singles from Happ, Kyle Tucker, and Suzuki as they used a four-run inning to break the game open 7-0.

That would be all the run support Steele needed as he only allowed one baserunner past the fourth inning, with that coming in the fifth inning, Kyle Higashioka's single. Steele would also finish his outing by retiring the final seven hitters he faced, as this was as close to midseason form as he could get.

Knowing the status of the Cubs bullpen, especially after the outing they had on Sunday, it was important for them to get an outing like this as they were able to rest all of their relievers for another day. That gave Colin Rea the opportunity to close out the game as he continues to be the mop-up guy early in the season.

Whether he stays in that role or not will be a question to answer later in the season, but with Rea retiring all six Rangers he faced on just 23 pitches, he did all that Craig Counsell asked him to do as the Cubs closed out another strong effort 7-0. Eight of the Cubs 10 hits came from four people as Suzuki, Busch, Tucker and Amaya all logged multi-hit games. Happ led the offense with three RBIs. Chicago will look to take another series on Tuesday when they right-hander Jameson Taillon to the mound against Patrick Corbin.