Jorge Soler picked the perfect walk-up song for 90s Music Day at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs outfielder strolled up to Snap's "I've Got the Power" and promptly delivered on that claim by driving in the first two runs of an eventual 6-2 Cubs victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday at Wrigley Field that included a 56-minute rain delay in the seventh inning and another delay in the ninth lasting 37 minutes.
In the first inning, Soler muscled a ball through the dampened infield to drive home Ben Zobrist and then crushed a 1-2 pitch 461 feet in the fourth, becoming the second player ever (see: Bryant, Kris) to hit the left-field scoreboard in a game at Wrigley.
"I would've been pleased on any given Par 5 to hit that particular drive," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "That thing was far, loud and far. He's gonna keep doing that. He's gaining some confidence. You can see the difference in his game, the way he's moving. His confidence is rising right now."
Four batters later, David Ross crushed his 100th career home run out onto Waveland Ave., a three-run shot that broke the game open for the Cubs.
Bryant followed with another blast onto Waveland in the fifth inning, providing all the offense Jon Lester and the Cubs bullpen needed on the afternoon.
Lester allowed only two runs (one earned) in 6.1 innings, striking out seven and surrendering six hits and a pair of walks.
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The unearned tally against Lester came on a sacrifice fly from Maikel Franco immediately after Dexter Fowler and Javy Baez each made an error on the same play, setting up runners at second and third and one out in the third inning.
"Dexter catches that ball 101 times out of 100," Maddon said. "You just don't do that. And then, of course, the ball off the corner of the [third base] bag, that's just really awkward stuff.
"We got ourselves right through the long ball. We hit some balls really well today. Give our guys credit on coming back from kind of a lethargic start and then eventually, we really got into a nice groove."
Lester's second run came in the seventh after he exited the ballgame following a double from Odubel Herrera. Trevor Cahill allowed two straight singles to plate Herrera before getting out of the inning with back-to-back strikeouts.
Lester improved to 5-3 and lowered his ERA to 2.48 in the process, rebounding nicely from a rough start (five earned runs in 2.2 innings pitched) in San Francisco last weekend.
"It's one start," Lester said. "The way our pitching staff has been going this year, I think when somebody has a bad start like that, ti's easy to kinda panic. I've had 'em before in my career. I've had worse.
"It's just part of the game. I wasn't worried about it. Worked on some things in the bullpen and came back out and obviously threw the ball a lot better today. Better results, just better overall stuff compared to [San Francisco]. I wasn't worried about last start."
Soler's game Friday continued his recent hot streak. He's gone 9-for-26 over the last nine games with two doubles, three homers, six RBIs, eight runs and four walks.
In that time, Soler has raised his average 40 points from .174 to .214 and his OPS 162 points to .692 on the season.