Chicago Cubs Young Star Makes Franchise History
The Chicago Cubs are coming off a stretch of their season where they had to play 27 games in 27 days. It's a lot of baseball to play in the back half of the year in the middle of their divisional and Wild Card race.
They came out of that stretch with a record of 16-11, despite dropping their last two series against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
In the midst of those disappointing team results, one of their young stars made franchise history on Wednesday when he stole his 40th base of the year.
Nico Hoerner is now the fourth player in Cubs history the past 100 seasons to steal 40 bases and drive in 60 RBI in the same year.
He joins Kiki Cuyler (1929), Ryne Sandberg (1985) and Juan Pierre (2006), who stole 58 bags that season.
"If you had told me I'd steal 40 bases in the big leagues a couple years ago, I'd be pretty fired up. I'm lucky to be a part of a team and a structure that's given me a lot of opportunity with that," Hoerner told Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
The second baseman is in the midst of his best season as Major League player, hitting .285/.343/.392 with nine home runs and 62 RBI. He's already set career highs for hits, total bases, and RBI with 15 games remaining to break his home run mark.
Hoerner was a first round pick of Chicago back in 2018, making his MLB debut one year later. The talented prospect has lived up to the hype and become one of the most important players on this Cubs team attempting to make the postseason for the first time since 2020.