The Cubs dropped the second game of their series with the Tigers.
Often, we hear about a sports contest’s game result being “closer than the score indicated.”
That was certainly the case for the Cubs’ 8-2 loss to the Tigers Wednesday evening at Wrigley Field, where the game was a two-run deficit for most of the late innings until a disastrous ninth.
Let’s go back to the beginning, though.
Jameson Taillon allowed some first-inning traffic but got out of the inning scoreless. The Cubs, as has seemed traditional for most of this year, didn’t score in that inning either.
Then Taillon made two bad pitches in the second, both after putting a man on base. A walk was followed by the first MLB homer by Detroit rookie Trey Sweeney, who was playing in just his third MLB game — and in place of Javier Báez, likely disappointing some Cubs fans who had attended hoping to see the former Cubs star. An out after the Sweeney homer, a double was followed by another long ball by Riley Greene.
So it’s 4-0 Detroit. But it’s only the second inning. The Cubs can come back, right?
Well, you know the answer to that. Let’s continue through this game.
Taillon settled down after the second homer and retired nine straight Tigers, helped out in part by this nice defensive play by Michael Busch [VIDEO].
Then a pair of hits put runners on second and third in the fifth. Taillon finished that inning with a strikeout. It wasn’t a terrible outing, but just bad enough to lose.
The Cubs did put a couple of runs on the board in the bottom of the fifth. Nico Hoerner led off with a single. Dansby Swanson appeared to hit into a double play, but was called safe on review [VIDEO].
Pete Crow-Armstrong then laid down a bunt. It was pretty clear he was not trying to sacrifice, he was trying to bunt for a hit, but was thrown out.
Christian Bethancourt then put a baseball into the bleachers [VIDEO].
That one actually got pretty close to our group, about six rows down.
So it’s 4-2 heading to the sixth, a not-insurmountable deficit, even for these offensively-challenged Cubs.
Nate Pearson threw two scoreless innings in relief, striking out three. He’s now got a 2.38 ERA and 0.794 WHIP in 10 Cubs appearances covering 11⅓ innings. That plays pretty well in middle relief, I’d say.
The Cubs did put on a bit of a rally in the bottom of the sixth. Seiya Suzuki hit a ball that hit Tigers pitcher Brant Hurter for a single. Hurter wasn’t hurt and remained in the game. That was followed by a fielder’s choice by Cody Bellinger and single by Isaac Paredes, putting runners on first and second, but Hoerner hit a comebacker to Hurter to end the inning.
In the seventh, the Cubs again put two on base. A one-out single by PCA was followed by a throwing error by Tigers third baseman Jace Jung on which Bethancourt was called out, again overturned on review [VIDEO].
But Ian Happ struck out and Patrick Wisdom, batting for Busch, flied to left.
Here’s where I roll my eyes at the reflexive “gotta put a RH hitter in to face a LH pitcher” thing that Craig Counsell almost always does in the late innings for Busch. If Busch is going to be the Cubs’ first baseman for a while — and I think he is — then let him bat vs. LHP! Also, Busch is hitting LHP reasonably well, .262/.318/.426 in 66 plate appearances. That’s a .744 OPS that’s better than Wisdom’s .709 OPS vs. LHP (81 PA).
So it’s still a two-run game heading to the ninth, and Jack Neely, just called up from Triple-A Iowa, made his MLB debut. Neely got a nice round of applause on entering, and his minor-league record this year has been stellar.
Not so much in this game. Neely walked the first Tiger he faced, but then got two fly balls to center field. After that, though, he fell apart, with a pair of singles making it 5-2 and a three-run homer by Kerry Carpenter putting the game far out of reach.
Neely has talent. Here’s hoping he shows more of it going forward than he did in this game. The Cubs went down meekly 1-2-3 in the ninth to end things.
The Cubs remained 5½ games behind the Braves for the third wild-card spot when Atlanta lost to Philadelphia. They also fell out of second place when the Cardinals beat the Brewers on a walkoff grand slam by Nolan Arenado, and are now tied with the Reds, who beat the Blue Jays. This is still not an impossible deficit, but... time’s growing short.
Justin Steele will start the series finale for the Cubs. As has been A.J. Hinch’s plan throughout this series, no starter is listed for the Tigers, though righthander Keider Montero would actually be on schedule to make a start today — without an opener! Or, it could be an opener followed by Kenta Maeda, who I thought was going to go in Wednesday’s game, but didn’t. As always, we await developments.
Game time Thursday is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
