All-Star slugger Javier Baez hit a three-run home run and drove in five, Kyle Schwarber and Ian Happ also went deep and the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs beat the San Diego Padres 11-6 on Saturday night. Baez, voted to start at second base in his first All-Star Game, hit a no-doubt shot to right-center field off Phil Hughes in the ninth inning, and the thousands of Cubs fans at Petco Park chanted “Javy! Javy! Javy!” as the 25-year-old from Puerto Rico rounded the bases. It was his 19th. Baez and Schwarber will be in Monday’s Home Run Derby in Washington. Kyle Hendricks (6-8) won for the first time in five starts, holding San Diego to two runs and five hits in five innings, with three strikeouts and no walks. He allowed Eric Hosmer’s two-run homer in the first, his 10th.
That lead was gone by the fourth. Happ homered to center field off Luis Perdomo (1-4) leading off the second, his 11th. Schwarber homered to left on a line shot after Happ walked opening the fourth. It was Schwarber’s 18th. Baez gave the Cubs a 5-2 lead with a two-run double in the fifth that chased Perdomo. Jason Heyward was aboard on a double after the initial call that he was tagged out was overturned on video review. Hunter Renfroe hit a pinch, two-run homer for the Padres in the sixth, his sixth, to pull the Padres within one. But the Cubs added on in the eighth on Addison Russell’s two-run single to right and Victor Caratini’s two-run double just inside the right-field line. San Diego’s Freddy Galvis hit a two-run double in the ninth. Perdomo allowed five runs and seven hits in five innings, struck out six and walked two.
