The Fourth of July fireworks started early in Chicago as the Cubs jumped on St. Louis Cardinals pitchers Miles Mikolas and John King with a franchise-record eight home runs during an 11-3 victory.<\/p>\n
Mikolas took the brunt of the damage by allowing six Cubs blasts. Seiya Suzuki and Pete Crow-Armstrong kicked off his rough day by going back-to-back in the bottom the first inning.<\/p>\n
Mikolas was not given a break in the second inning as Michael Busch and Carson Kelly went back-to-back for a 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong, a 2025 All-Star Game starter, and Busch weren’t done mashing, and each hit their second blasts of the day in the bottom of the third inning to extend the Cubs lead to 7-0.<\/p>\n
The six dingers hit in the first three innings were the most in Cubs history to open a game, according to MLB’s Sarah Langs.<\/p>\n
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Busch would later hit his third of the game, right after Dansby Swanson smashed his 15th of the season off reliever John King as the Cubs went up 11-1 and set a single-game franchise record with eight home runs.<\/p>\n
Mikolas had to battle through a tough afternoon. Despite his struggles, he remained in the game and went six innings, allowing eight earned runs on 10 hits. The six home runs allowed in a game set a new Cardinals franchise record and Mikolas joined 10 other players, including Tim Wakefield, R.A. Dickey and the immortal Sloppy Thurston, for the MLB record.<\/p>\n
Mikolas has been prone to the long ball since 2023, having allowed 26 in each of the past two seasons. He’s now allowed 15 through 87 1\/3 innings this year.<\/p>\n
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The Cubs’ fireworks show was ultimately two short of the all-time MLB record for a single game. That honor is held by the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays, who hit 10 during an 18-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. Ernie Whitt hit three and Rance Mulliniks and George Bell each sent two blasts over the Exhibition Stadium wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Busch hit three and Pete Crow-Armstrong blasted a pair, while Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas allowed six.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":66138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[281,1352,1828,282,992,2418,1089,1600,594,1086,2419,592,79],"class_list":["post-66137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-cardinals","tag-carson-kelly","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-dansby-swanson","tag-franchise-record","tag-john-king","tag-michael-busch","tag-miles-mikolas","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-r-a-dickey","tag-seiya-suzuki","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"yoast_head":"\n