CHICAGO _ After finally breaking through against ace Jacob deGrom, the Cubs and Mets entered a rain delay with the score tied at 1 in the top of the 10th inning late Tuesday night.
Play stopped at 10:17 p.m. with a two-ball count on Michael Conforto with reliever Steve Cishek on the mound.
Prior to the rain delay, the Cubs finally broke through in the seventh against deGrom, who lowered his National League-leading ERA to 1.68.
Pinch-hitter Ben Zobrist hit a single that advanced Albert Almora Jr. to third, and rookie David Bote followed with a sacrifice fly.
The Cubs, however, missed a chance to go ahead in the eighth after Anthony Rizzo hit a single and moved to second on a walk to Jason Heyward.
But deGrom struck out Javier Baez on a 97 mph fastball (after Baez failed on two bunt attempts) and induced Victor Caratini to ground into a double play on his 109th pitch.
Cubs left-hander Cole Hamels, pitching for the first time since throwing a 114-pitch complete game last Thursday, became the sixth qualifying Cubs pitcher to go unbeaten (4-0) with a sub-1.00 ERA (0.69) during the month of August. Hamels also became the first to accomplish this feat since Jake Arrieta in 2015 (6-0, 0.43).
Hamels needed 22 pitches to get out of the first inning, capped by his strikeouts of Michael Conforto and Todd Frazier with a runner at third.
A fielding error by second baseman Daniel Murphy on a routine play put Hamels in danger in the third, but he struck out Conforto to quell the threat.
And after walking Austin Jackson to load the bases, Hamels relied on his changeup to whiff Conforto on his 93rd pitch to end the fifth.
The Mets snapped a scoreless tie in the sixth on a two-out single by deGrom past Bote at third base off. The hit came off left-hander Jorge De La Rosa, who was summoned after two of the first three batters reached safely against Brandon Kintzler.
