Back from a losing road trip through St. Louis and Toronto that saw their offensive rut deepen – and the gap between them and the Brewers in the NL Central widen – the Cubs spent their time before Friday’s game downplaying their recent woes.
“The Cubbies are the Cubbies,” center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong said. “We’re going to keep playing the same baseball we’ve played all year.
“It’s been an interesting two weeks, but we’re fine. I don’t think there’s any worry in the world.”
Tell that to the 40,000-plus who packed into the supposedly Friendly Confines on Friday afternoon and rained boos down upon the Cubs upon the conclusion of their 3-2 series-opening loss to the Pirates.
The Cubs, who are in real danger of trailing the Brewers by double digits by weekend’s end, have played 13 games in August and scored two runs or fewer in eight of them.
“You see a lot of guys frustrated,” left fielder Ian Happ said after the game. “You probably see it watching on TV. When hits don’t fall with guys in scoring position, when you have a tough at-bat, you feel like you’re letting the group down. That’s a frustrating feeling. It’s on us to pick each other up and continue to push forward.”
Friday, it was the same old story, one that’s gotten old quick for panicking Cubs fans as the Brewers seem primed to run away with the division.
The Cubs mustered just the two tallies against the last-place Pirates, squandering a golden chance in the seventh inning, when they loaded the bases with no outs in a one-run game. A sacrifice fly tied the score at 2, but that’s all the North Siders came away with.
Typically trusty closer Daniel Palencia gave up a tie-breaking homer in the top of the ninth. And after Crow-Armstrong singled to start the bottom half of the inning, he was out after over-sliding second base on a steal attempt, wiping out a nascent threat.
Per usual, Crow-Armstrong was the center of attention. In addition to the ninth-inning base-running mistake, he was also thrown out trying to stretch an RBI single into a double earlier in the game and came up empty on a diving try in center field, which went for a run-scoring double and gave him a banged-up knee.
But without him, the Cubs wouldn’t have even scored twice. He had three hits and was on base four times, showing, somewhat, that this team still has the potential to create offense the way it did during the first half of the season.
To do that, though, it’ll be on more than just Crow-Armstrong.
Slumping right fielder Kyle Tucker had another oh-fer of a day, 0-for-3 with a walk, and is hitting just .182 since the All-Star break. There were only three hits, total, outside of Crow-Armstrong’s trio, and the top four spots in the batting order were a combined 1-for-14 with five strikeouts.
It’s not that team-wide outages are uncommon during a lengthy baseball season, it’s that this one is coming at a real bad time for the Cubs, with the Brewers constantly growing their lead.
And if the Cubs don’t snap out of it soon, perhaps it will be too late to catch the can’t-seem-to-lose Brew Crew, who come to Wrigley for a pivotal five-game series next week.
“That’s the game of baseball,” manager Craig Counsell said. “You’re frustrated by a loss, you go home and turn the page, and you’re excited to come out tomorrow with an incredible opportunity for this team in front of us.
“That’s what we have right now. That’s where we sit. We’re upset we lost the game, but we sit right here with an incredible opportunity. That opportunity requires us to go beat the other guy. But we’ve earned a great opportunity. That’s how I’m looking at this.
“We’ve got 40-ish games. We’ve got it in our hands. We’re going to have to earn it, no doubt.”