The Chicago Cubs defeated the Kansas City Royals 3-2 at Surprise Stadium on February 23, 2026, in a game that remained close throughout and was not fully decided until the final out. The DiamondIQ model opened with Kansas City holding a 54% win probability as the home side, but a tense ninth inning ultimately swung that figure to zero as the Cubs preserved their one-run advantage.
The game's decisive sequence began earlier, in the top of the fourth inning, when Jefferson Rojas launched a home run off Luinder Avila, a swing that added 11.8% to Chicago's win probability and gave the Cubs an early lead they would not relinquish. Chicago tacked on another run in the fifth, and though Kansas City answered with solo tallies in the eighth and ninth innings to pull within one, Walker Powell could not complete the comeback. The bottom of the ninth was the game's most volatile stretch: Elih Marrero's double and Spencer Nivens's walk each added 11.4% to the Royals' win probability, and a Peyton Wilson sacrifice fly trimmed Chicago's lead to the final margin and represented a 10.5% swing in Kansas City's favor. But Powell induced a strikeout of Kameron Misner with the tying run on base, a result that shifted win probability 15.5% back toward Chicago and sealed the outcome.
On the individual ledger, Rojas and Misner each finished with a game-high 12.2% WPA, with Rojas posting a RE24 of plus 1.0 and Misner contributing a minus 0.8 mark that reflects the run-environment context of his final at-bat. Nivens added 11.4% WPA with his ninth-inning walk. Among Chicago's pitchers, Javier Assad led the staff with 8.2% WPA, followed by Ben Brown at 6.7% and Collin Snider at 6.3%, as the Cubs' collective pitching effort held Kansas City's seven-hit attack to two runs against zero errors.
Analysis generated by DiamondIQ's model.