Chicago White Sox at Chicago Cubs: Final Score & Recap

The Chicago Cubs walked off the Chicago White Sox 4-3 on August 18, 2026, at Wrigley Field, completing a comeback that the DiamondIQ model tracked from a 60 percent pre-game home win probability all the way to 100 percent by the final out. The White Sox had taken a 3-2 lead into the seventh inning and carried that advantage into the ninth, but Trevor Richards could not hold it, and the Cubs manufactured the decisive runs against him to close out the win.

The most consequential sequence of the game unfolded in the bottom of the ninth. Alex Bregman delivered a single off Richards that swung win probability by plus 37.4 percent, the single largest play of the contest by a wide margin. Carson Kelly followed with a double that added another plus 17.5 percent, putting the Cubs in position to close it out. Bregman had already been the central figure in the seventh inning, when his single off Grant Taylor produced a plus 15.8 percent swing that kept the Cubs within striking distance. On the negative side, Michael Conforto struck out against Richards for a minus 11.0 percent swing, a moment that briefly kept White Sox hopes alive. Munetaka Murakami's third-inning home run off Kevin Gausman had been the pivotal blow for Chicago's South Side club, registering a plus 10.5 percent swing.

Bregman finished as the game's most valuable performer by a substantial margin, accumulating plus 46.7 percent WPA and plus 1.2 RE24 across his two clutch singles. Kelly's double contributed plus 17.5 percent WPA and plus 0.6 RE24, while Colson Montgomery posted plus 13.9 percent WPA and plus 1.0 RE24 to round out the Cubs' top offensive contributors. On the pitching side, Erick Fedde led all pitchers with plus 24.0 percent WPA, followed closely by Javier Assad at plus 23.2 percent and Jacob Webb at plus 13.5 percent, the three of them combining to keep the Cubs in the game long enough for the offense to finish it.