NEW YORK — If the All-Star break is an in-season finish line, the Cubs haven’t been exactly sprinting toward it.
They were trounced by the Yankees 11-0 on Friday, after dropping two out of three in Minnesota. With just a one-game lead over the Brewers, the Cubs are by no means guaranteed to enter the break in first place in the National League Central.
And when they return, the Cubs will have 66 games to play. That’s plenty of time to build — or lose — a lead in the division race.
The Cubs didn’t have a strong showing Friday. The matchup, a bullpen day against Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon, didn’t bode well. And after two scoreless innings from both sides, the Cubs began to slip.
The Yankees took the lead on a sacrifice fly from Aaron Judge off right-hander Chris Flexen, who was making his first start of the season. Then Cody Bellinger struck.
“He had a good game,” manager Craig Counsell said. “We didn’t make very good pitches to him.”
In November, Bellinger picked up the 2025 option on his contract with the Cubs. But the next month, the Cubs acquired right fielder Kyle Tucker from the Astros and traded Bellinger to the Yankees soon after.
In Bellinger’s second at-bat, he lifted a two-run homer over the right-field wall. Two innings later, he faced lefty reliever Caleb Thielbar. The left-on-left matchup didn’t faze Bellinger, and he launched another two-run shot to right-center.
It took a spectacular defensive play to slow him down. Leading off the seventh against another left-hander, Jordan Wicks, Bellinger again drove a pitch deep to right field. Tucker tracked it back to the wall, leaped and robbed Bellinger of a third home run.
“I was watching it; he timed it up perfect,” Bellinger said. “I was a little sick about it, honestly. But it was a good catch.”
For the Cubs, the relief was brief.
The next inning, Bellinger hit a third two-run homer, this time to center field, achieving the first three-homer game of his career.
Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong leaped high enough to reach his glove over the fence, but a young fan caught the ball instead.
“I’ve seen PCA rob so many homers,” Bellinger said. “He’s a freak athlete out there. I just met that kid who caught it. So I gave him some love to take it out of PCA’s glove right there. I think he would have had it.”
Bellinger wasn’t the only player robbed of a home run. In the fourth, Crow-Armstrong hit a long fly just over the right-field wall, and Judge reached over and pulled it back.
To end the inning, Judge made a catch diving in on a line drive hit by Dansby Swanson.
Judge also snuffed out the Cubs’ best run-scoring opportunity. With runners on the corners and two outs in the eighth, Tucker hit a fly ball up the right-field line. Judge made a sliding catch to end the inning.
“It’s just one of those nights where nothing went our way,” Flexen said. “Got the better of us tonight, and we’ve got a chance for the next two to try to win the series still.”