Cubs firing on all cylinders, going 15-3 since mid-April

“That was definitely a funky one,” Hoerner said. “Kind of like that random play in [Los Angeles] where I barehanded the ball. It’s cool when you play the game for so long but there’s still new things popping up.”

Hoerner said he was trying to deke Corbin Carroll a little farther off of the base in order to have a shot at getting him out at first, and the wind helped get the ball to a spot where he was able to complete the play. Under different circumstances, Hoerner said, that’s a pop fly that first baseman Michael Busch would usually range to his right to catch.

“It’s one of those things where every step matters, especially with how fast [Carroll] is,” Sunday’s starter Matt Boyd said. “I think he deked [Carroll] into just hanging out at the base a tick longer. It’s a heads-up play. No one is really watching that, right? You’re watching the swing, and it bought enough time to double him up.

“That play was truly Nico all around. Just heads up baseball.”

Hoerner’s sixth-inning double play capped off Boyd’s outing and kept Counsell from needing to turn to his bullpen in the sixth, as Boyd was approaching 100 pitches. All told, Boyd tossed his first quality start of the season, going six innings with just two runs surrendered while walking only one Arizona batter and striking out five.

That’s an impressive line on an afternoon when the wind was blowing out to center at first pitch, and against a Diamondbacks offense that had the highest batting average (.286) against left-handed pitching going into Sunday’s game.

“I thought [Boyd] pitched really well, and it was kind of the front to back day where the fastball and off speed stuff [were] keeping hitters off balance enough and in the zone enough,” Counsell said. “And controlling counts where they can’t get to one pitch or sit on one pitch or sit on one speed.”

Boyd said he was able to command his fastball really well, which allowed him to mix in his changeup and generate a lot of swing-and-miss and awkward swings against his off-speed pitch. Boyd went to his changeup 35 times on Sunday, and he got either a called third strike or a swing and miss 40 percent of the time.

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The Cubs have a good test ahead of them in the month of May. They have seen little of their own division to this point, only having played the Pirates three times thus far, but the Reds come to town this week, and the Cubs will face the Brewers at home and then the Pirates and Cardinals on the road later this month.

After Sunday’s games, all five teams in the National League Central division were at least three games above .500, and only the Reds have a negative run differential. The rest of the National League has only three teams boasting a winning record, and there are just three times in all of the American League that are above .500.

The Cubs seem built for a successful season, but as the first five weeks of 2026 have shown, their division is going to be a hard one to win. So while the 15-3 record the Cubs have enjoyed over the last three weeks is nice, their manager is aware that playing at this level is tough to maintain for very long.

“You play well today, it doesn’t guarantee you anything tomorrow,” Counsell said. “You gotta keep doing it, and you have to be ready for the long haul in this thing. We are playing good baseball, but there’s nothing promised tomorrow. [We] have to come out and beat a good team tomorrow.”

As nice as the last three weeks have been, the next three might be a good litmus test for how good the Cubs might actually be. They will play 14 games in May against division opponents, starting with a four-game home series against the Reds, who are six games above .500 themselves. In between those series, they’ll also have to contend with the first-place Atlanta Braves, who at 25-10 are sitting comfortably atop the NL East.