New York Mets at Chicago Cubs: Final Score & Recap

The Chicago Cubs handled the New York Mets decisively on June 22, 2024, at Wrigley Field, rolling to an 8-1 victory behind a dominant pitching performance from Jameson Taillon and timely contributions throughout the lineup. The DiamondIQ model entered the game with a 54 percent home win probability for Chicago, and by the final out that figure had climbed to 100 percent, reflecting just how thoroughly the Cubs controlled the contest from the opening frame.

The game was effectively decided in the first inning, when Chicago plated five runs off Mets starter Tylor Megill. Two of the biggest swings in win probability came in those early frames and set the tone for everything that followed. Tomás Nido's flyout in the bottom of the first registered a win-probability shift of plus-8.5 percent for the Cubs, underscoring how loaded those early situations were, while Seiya Suzuki drew a strikeout in the second that added another plus-8.8 percent to Chicago's ledger. Suzuki finished as the game's top offensive performer by the DiamondIQ model's estimate, posting a plus-11.8 percent WPA and a 0.9 RE24, while Christopher Morel added a solo home run off Megill in the third, contributing a plus-4.1 percent WPA and a team-leading 1.3 RE24. New York's lone bright spot came in the fifth, when Francisco Alvarez lifted a home run off Taillon for a plus-2.8 percent swing, though it barely dented the Cubs' commanding cushion.

Taillon was the story on the mound, leading all pitchers with a plus-16.7 percent WPA as he kept the Mets largely in check across his outing. Alvarez's first-inning strikeout against him, the single biggest individual play of the game at minus-9.8 percent for New York, illustrated how effectively Taillon neutralized threats before they could develop. The Cubs finished with nine hits and committed no errors, while the Mets managed seven hits and were undone by one error in a game that was never truly competitive after Chicago's five-run opening burst.