Chicago Cubs slugger Kris Bryant is one of baseball’s brightest young hitters, and he demolished Dan Straily and the Cincinnati Reds in an 11-8 Cubs victory Monday.
Bryant finished 5-for-5 with three home runs, six RBI and four runs scored, which etched his name into the baseball record book, per MLB‘s Twitter account:
Normally, that would be plenty of run support for the Cubs and their major league-leading 2.83 team ERA. Yet Bryant still needed some help from his teammates.
Ace Jake Arrieta pitched poorly, allowing five earned runs on four hits and five walks in five innings, but he still earned a win—thanks in part to a homer of his own.
Bryant started the night with a run-scoring double off Straily in the first inning and later scored on Miguel Montero’s sacrifice fly. In his next at-bat, Bryant smashed his first home run to left-center field in the third inning.
He hit a three-run jack halfway up the second deck in left in the fourth to give Chicago a 7-3 lead, as Statcast showed:
That was his last at-bat against Straily, who allowed seven earned runs on nine hits and three walks in 3.2 innings.
In the sixth, Bryant doubled off Michael Lorenzen, and in the eighth, he hit a solo shot off Ross Ohlendorf.
ESPN Stats & Info noted the 24-year-old set a Cubs record—and an offensive standard for the season:
Bryant’s season totals also received a nice boost, per CSN Chicago’s Christopher Kamka:
Per Ryan M. Spaeder of Sporting News, Bryant has been on a hot streak of late:
Spaeder also noted Bryant’s performance put him in the most exclusive of categories:
CBS Chicago’s Joe Ostrowski found a way to compare Bryant to Bryant’s childhood teammate, Bryce Harper:
While Bryant may not be in line for that type of money yet, he showed how dangerous he can be with his dominant performance Monday.
He is already among baseball’s elite sluggers in only his second big league season. And with a Cubs lineup that ranks fourth in the majors in runs around him, Bryant should have an ample number of opportunities to crush the ball the rest of the year.
Statistics courtesy of ESPN.com unless otherwise noted.
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