NEW YORK -- Rookie Kyle Hendricks' quality stretch continued on Monday.
Anthony Rizzo doubled and scored a run, and he hit a go-ahead solo homer in the eighth, while Javier Baez belted a two-run blast to back Hendricks, who posted his sixth straight quality start, and lead the Cubs to a 4-1 victory over the Mets at Citi Field.
 
Hendricks, Baez help Cubs beat Mets 4-1
 
Rizzo hit his 28th with one out and Baez launched his fifth into the upper deck with one on and one out in the ninth to help the Cubs split the four-game series. They now have won more games this month (nine) than they did in August 2013, when they went 8-20.
Hendricks scattered three hits over seven innings, and is the first Cubs rookie to post six consecutive quality starts since Kerry Wood had two stretches of seven in a row in 1998. In his Major League debut on July 10 against the Reds, Hendricks gave up three runs in the first inning, but he has been charged with seven earned runs over 47 2/3 innings since then.
Cubs pitching held the Mets to four hits in the first three games of the series, and allowed four on Monday. The last time they held a team to four or fewer hits in three-straight games was May 15-17, 1995, against the Giants.
Bartolo Colon was scheduled to start for the Mets, but he was scratched so that he could travel to the Dominican Republic to be with his mother, who was ill. Carlos Torres, who pitched one-third of an inning in relief on Sunday, started and struck out the side in the first. This was his first start of the year after 53 relief appearances.
The Cubs used a defensive shift against the Mets' Lucas Duda, and it paid off in the second as third baseman Luis Valbuena made the throw from the right side of the infield to get him out. But Duda beat the shift with one out in the fourth, hitting his 22nd home run into the Cubs' bullpen for a 1-0 lead.
Torres was lifted after five innings and Rizzo greeted lefty Dana Eveland with a leadoff double in the sixth and he scored one out later on Valbuena's single.
Rizzo's blast was off Buddy Carlyle, who had not given up a run in 12 2/3 innings.
Carrie Muskat / MLB.com
 

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