Coming into Friday, the Houston Astros hadn’t won at Wrigley Field since 2013, the year they moved from the NL Central to the AL West. They ended that drought at the Friendly Confines with a 4-2 victory over a Cubs team that’s now lost six straight games and 10 of their past 12 following a head-turning 27-12 start to the year.
Just two weeks ago, the Cubs (29-22) polished off their second 10-game win streak of the 2026 campaign — the club’s first time accomplishing that single-season feat in 91 years — and now they’re floundering at home, where they’ve dropped four in a row.
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Meanwhile, the Astros (21-31) still haven’t scored more than four runs since May 8, but they’re straining to keep their season afloat. On Friday, as has often been the case this year, Spencer Arrighetti gave a shot in the arm to an injury-riddled Houston pitching staff.
The right-handed starter spun five innings of shutout ball. He wasn’t without the command issues that have held him, plunking back-to-back batters and clocking out with four walks; however, he struck out five and conceded only two hits while escaping a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the third and ultimately lowering his ERA to 1.32 on the year.
That ERA is the ninth lowest posted by an Astros pitcher through their first seven starts of a season, according to The Athletic’s Chandler Rome, via Stathead.
The Astros staked themselves to a 4-0 lead in the fifth inning, thanks to a pinch-hit RBI single from Brice Matthews. Before that, Houston catcher Christian Vázquez drove in two of his team’s four runs. He blasted a solo shot to left-center in the third and sent an RBI single to right in the fourth.
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All four runs the Astros scored came off Cubs starter Jameson Taillon. The righty allowed eight hits in 4 2/3 innings of work.
One silver lining for the Cubs: Pete Crow-Armstrong had a bounce-back moment in the sixth. The passionate center fielder, beleaguered of late, launched a much-needed two-run shot to make it a ball game.
In the past week, PCA has issued an apology and paid a fine for clapping back at a heckling White Sox fan and committed what he called “genuinely laughable” errors on back-to-back days against the Milwaukee Brewers.
But perhaps he turned the page on Friday.
In the top of the ninth, Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson flashed his glove with a gem of a sliding, backhanded stop and a throw from the outfield to put out Vázquez.
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That said, those highlight-reel plays are merely footnotes during an ongoing skid that’s soured a sweet spring in Chicago.
