There’s an old baseball saying, you’ve likely heard this one: “Every team wins a third of its games and loses a third of its games. It’s what you do with the other third that makes your season.”
The Cubs’ 10-4 loss to the Phillies Saturday afternoon in front of a sold-out Wrigley Field was one of those “losing a third” games. Ben Brown held the Phillies down for three innings and then got pounded in a disastrous six-run fourth.
I’m going to say this again and I know many here will disagree with me. Ben Brown would better serve the Cubs in the bullpen. He has only two pitches and at least so far this year, hasn’t seemed to be able to shut down the other team for long periods of time. Eventually, I think they’ll move him there.
For now, though, let’s take a quick look back at this stinker.
Brown hit Kyle Schwarber leading off the fourth and that seemed to discombobulate him. He allowed four straight singles after that, followed by a sacrifice fly anbd another single. Granted, some of those hits were of the “just got through” variety, but hits they were nevertheless. Honestly, after all that hitting and the fact that Drew Pomeranz was warmed up and ready to go, why Craig Counsell let Brown stay in to face Bryce Harper with two runners on is beyond me. You could predict what happened — Harper hit a two-run double to put the game basically out of reach.
Brown really needs to develop an effective third pitch, in my view. Only two changeups the whole game out of 80 pitches thrown.
The Cubs, who didn’t have a hit over the first four innings, did try to mount a comeback. With two out in the fifth, Miguel Amaya reached on an error. That was followed by the first Cubs hit of the game, a single by Jon Berti. Ian Happ, who had walked twice previously, drew his third walk of the game to load the bases.
That single made it 6-2, but Suzuki was stranded.
Pomeranz, who’s looked very good in his two outings thus far, retired the Phillies in order in the fifth prior to the Cubs rally, but when he was replaced by Ethan Roberts to start the sixth, the Phillies touched up Roberts for three runs in that inning. Roberts issued a walk and hit a batter, and a double by Schwarber scored two of the three runs.
Then Max Kepler homered off Roberts in the seventh, and that was quite the feat, with a strong wind blowing in at 14 miles per hour.
That’s about as low a launch angle as you can get — 23 degrees — and still hit a home run. It barely made the right-field basket.
That made the score 10-2 Phillies. The Cubs had one more rally left in them. Amaya led off the seventh with a walk and Berti singled. Berti was forced at second by Happ, with Amaya taking third.
That left runners on first and third with two out, but Dansby Swanson struck out to end the inning.
I was kind of surprised that Counsell didn’t get Swanson and Nico Hoerner out of there at that point, give them a couple innings break. But both remained in the game for the top of the ninth, after the Cubs tried to rally with singles by Amaya and Berti with two out in the eighth. Happ struck out to end that inning.
Finally, in the ninth, Counsell sent up pinch hitters. Nicky Lopez made his Cubs debut batting for Suzuki and flied to right. Vidal Bruján batted for Tucker and hit a ball of Trea Turner’s glove for a single. But that was it, as Turner struck out and Swanson, still in the game, flied to right to end it.
Daniel Palencia, who’s looked good lately, threw a scoreless eighth with a walk, and Brad Keller, who hasn’t looked good lately, threw a 1-2-3 ninth with a pair of strikeouts.
So that’s the story of this game, just one of those “third of the season” the Cubs were destined to lose. The 10 runs the Phillies scored were two more than their previous four games combined. Hopefully that won’t be the case again Sunday, when the Cubs will once again try to meatloaf this series. Jameson Taillon will take the mound for the Cubs and Aaron Nola will go for Philadelphia. This game is ESPN’s feature game for Sunday Night Baseball and game time is 6:10 p.m. CT.
[ajax_load_more]