Alex Bregman hit three of the franchise-record nine home runs by the Chicago Cubs in a 17-3 win against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers in the opener of their four-game series on Monday evening.
Tyrone Taylor, Nico Hoerner, Carson Kelly, Matt Shaw, Seiya Suzuki and Michael Conforto also homered for Chicago, which also hit 62 home runs in August, the most of any month in NL history.
Cubs starter Clay Holmes (6-6) threw five shutout innings, allowing five hits, striking out eight and walking two.
Brewers left-hander Kyle Harrison (10-4) was tagged for 10 hits and a season-high nine runs in 3 2/3 innings. He struck out three and walked two.
Cooper Pratt singled, homered and drove in two runs for Milwaukee, which had won four of five.
The Cubs had a runner on first with two outs in the first when Taylor clubbed a home run far up the bleachers in left for a 2-0 lead.
Hoerner then stepped up and homered over the same fence in left to make it 3-0.
The Cubs continued to add on during the opening inning, as Michael Busch followed with a double and he scored on a single by Kelly to make it 4-0.
The Cubs rallied with two outs again in the second with Suzuki reaching on a single and Bregman then blasting a home run to left for a 6-0 lead.
Harrison managed to get through the third without allowing a home run, but Suzuki and Bregman hit back-to-back homers with one out in the fourth to extend the lead to 8-0.
Chad Patrick walked in a run later in the inning that was charged to Harrison, making it 9-0.
After the Cubs were sat down in order in the fifth and sixth innings, the Brewers got on the scoreboard with Pratt’s two-run homer in the seventh to cut it to 9-2.
Kelly led off the bottom half of the inning with a home run, and Shaw went deep after Miguel Amaya was hit by a pitch to make it 12-2.
Chicago answered a run by Milwaukee in the eighth with two more home runs in its half of the inning, a pinch-hit three-run shot by Conforto and Bregman’s third of the game to make it 17-3.
