Philadelphia Phillies at Chicago Cubs: Final Score & Recap

The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Chicago Cubs 5-3 at Wrigley Field on July 3, 2024, completing the victory on the road against a Cubs team the DiamondIQ model had pegged at just a 33 percent chance of winning before first pitch. The game was relatively tight through the first five innings before Philadelphia seized control, and the Cubs never recovered from a pair of late-inning swings that effectively closed the door on any Chicago comeback.

The decisive blow came in the top of the sixth, when Alec Bohm lifted a home run off Shota Imanaga that shifted win probability by 21.8 percentage points in Philadelphia's favor, the single most impactful play of the game. The Cubs responded with a Cody Bellinger single off Matt Strahm in the bottom of the seventh that moved the needle 16.4 points back toward Chicago, momentarily keeping the game within reach. But the Phillies answered emphatically in the top of the eighth against Tyson Miller, with Whit Merrifield singling for a 14.9-point swing and Edmundo Sosa adding a sacrifice fly worth another 13.4 points, effectively extinguishing any remaining hope for the home side. Pete Crow-Armstrong's double off Zack Wheeler in the fourth had been Chicago's most threatening moment, registering a 13.0-point swing, but it ultimately amounted to nothing in the final accounting.

Bohm finished as the game's top performer by WPA at plus-23.6 percent with a RE24 of plus-1.3, while Bellinger led all Cubs batters at plus-19.5 percent and a RE24 of plus-1.0 despite being on the losing side. Crow-Armstrong posted the best RE24 of anyone in the game at plus-1.7, though his plus-15.3 WPA could not offset the collective damage done by the Philadelphia offense. On the pitching side, Orion Kerkering was the standout reliever for Philadelphia, contributing plus-13.3 WPA out of the bullpen, with Porter Hodge adding plus-6.6 WPA as the Cubs' bullpen struggled to contain the Phillies late.