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Right from the first pitch, the Cubs made their intentions clear.

After two days of watching the Cardinals lift themselves into the race with home runs and speed away with two victories, Cubs leadoff hitter Ian Happ drilled the first pitch of the game from Erick Fedde for a homer. Happ, who is familiar with stuffing full a few box scores against the rivals, started the game with a home run and ended the 8-0 rout with three RBIs.

The win sets up a showdown in the series finale between the Cardinals seeking a win and the Cubs playing for a split and leaving town with the same lead in the division that they had when they arrived.

The Cardinals need a win to trim the lead to 2 ½ and use this week to cut two games off the first-place Cubs’ advantage.

The game got so lopsided in the late innings that Garrett Hampson pitched the ninth inning in his first game as a Cardinal. Picked up off of waivers on Tuesday, Hampson arrived in St. Louis on Wednesday, and started in center field that evening. He played shortstop for a few innings before becoming the first position player to pitch in his Cardinals debut since Cody McKay did with his knuckleball in 2004. This is how bad the score was for the Cardinals.

The game got better with Hampson in it.

It took the veteran utility fielder three pitches to get three outs for a perfect ninth inning. The fastest pitch he threw was a 48.3-mph breaking ball, and he didn’t have much time to average anything other than 47.3 mph on his trio of tosses.

Low velocity finished the game.

High exit velocity defined it.

The Cubs pummeled Cardinals starter Erick Fedde for seven runs on eight hits, and five of those hits left the bat at 100 mph or faster. All three of the Cubs’ homers came off Fedde and put the game away early.

Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd (7-3) pitched six shutout innings and held the Cardinals to three hits. Four of the Cardinals’ five at-bats with runners in scoring position came in a fruitless third inning that began with a leadoff double and ended four batters later without a run.

The Cardinals were shut out at home for the first time since mid-April.

Cubs flex on Fedde

The first two games of the series were dictated by the Cardinals’ sudden upswing of power and the six home runs they hit to produce their first dozen runs of this season.

The Cubs wasted little time asserting themselves Wednesday.

Happ tagged that first pitch of the game for homer, and by the end of the third inning, the Cubs had two more home runs and a hearty 4-0 lead. Four of the Cubs’ first five hits against Fedde (3-7) went for extra bases, and almost everything they put in play against Fedde was hit hard, whether it was an out or it left the yard.

The Cubs put eight balls in play at 100 mph or faster, and five of those went for hits. There were also home runs hit by Happ at 98.8 mph or by Reese McGuire at 97.8 mph. The Cubs had a total of 13 balls that qualified as hard-hit, per Statcast, because they left the bat at 95 mph or faster.

Thirteen.

The Cubs only put 17 in play total against Fedde.

McGuire’s homer was a two-run shot that pushed the Cubs ahead 3-0, and in the third Kyle Tucker led off the inning with a homer that pinballed near the Cardinals’ bullpen for a 4-0 lead.

Fourth gets worse

What the Cubs did with power in the first three innings they accomplished with help from the Cardinals’ ragged play in the fourth inning.

By the time Fedde left the bases loaded for someone else to deal with, the Cardinals had allowed three singles, a walk, and three stolen bases. Happ collected his second and third RBIs of the game with a single to right. He didn’t have time to steal a base before being moved to third by Tucker’s second hit of the game. Tucker stole second just in case.

The Cardinals were leaning on Fedde to pitch deeper into the game to keep the bullpen fresh for a blitz of use if needed in Thursday’s series finale. Another reason for saving some innings from the bullpen was all of the recent transactions that have left a handful of reliever unavailable for promotion from Class AAA Memphis due to mandatory minimum stays in the minors. Chris Roycroft, Roddery Munoz, Andre Granillo, Gordon Graceffo, and, as of Wednesday, Michael McGreevy were all optioned out in the past two weeks and thus ineligible to return, except in the case of injury or doubleheader.

That squeezed the Cardinals’ choices for any arm, let alone a fresh arm.

So Fedde had to wear some of his struggles by providing innings.

The fourth made it difficult for him to take the fifth.

On his final pitch of the game, Fedde walked Seiya Suzuki to load the bases and force the Cardinals to go to the bullpen – and stretch lefty John King through the middle innings.

It helped that it took King one pitch to end the fourth.

He got a quick groundout from Pete Crow-Armstrong to strand the bases loaded and complete Fedde’s line.

Fifth wasn’t so great, either

If the first two games of the series were some of the most entertaining and sharp baseball played by the Cardinals this season, the middle innings of Wednesday’s slog were the counterpoint.

The steals of the fourth inning gave way to the weird of the fifth.

King struck out Dansby Swanson to start the inning, but the Cubs’ shortstop reached first on a wild pitch. The next batter, Michael Busch, accidentally nudged the ball with a check swing. The ground dribbled out in front of home plate, but in the process of avoiding Busch’s bat, catcher Yohel Pozo ran past the ball. Initially ruled an error on Pozo for that miss, the play was reviewed and edited into a hit for Busch. Regardless of the scorers’ call, the play added to the difficult stretch Pozo had.

King piloted the Cardinals out of more significant trouble by striking out Tucker to end the inning. The lone run of the inning, Swanson’s for 7-0 lead, scored on a groundout.

At that point the Cubs had scored at least once in every inning.

King’s sixth inning was the first they did not.