Marlins 7, Cubs 2: The offense disappears, again

Here’s one of those games that was “closer than the score indicated.”

The Cubs trailed just 3-1 heading to the bottom of the eighth and it was, at least, theoretically possible for them to come back. But Julian Merryweather had a disastrous eighth inning and that put the game out of reach, ending with a final score of Marlins 7, Cubs 2.

The “2” in that score is the more important number, because after putting 14 on the board Saturday against the Marlins, the Cubs let a couple of not-so-great pitchers dominate them Sunday afternoon.

Javier Assad put the Cubs in a hole in the first inning, serving up a pair of solo homers that, in the end, would have been enough for Miami to win the game, given the Cubs’ failure at the plate.

That, unfortunately, was pretty much it for the Cubs offense. They did have four other hits and four walks, but all that did was lead to another bad day with RISP, 2-for-12 with nine left on base overall. A few notes on Cubs RISP hitting from BCB’s JohnW53:

From Opening Day through the sixth inning of Saturday’s game, the Cubs had made just eight hits, in 74 at bats, with two outs and a runner only on third: one in April, two in May, two in June and three in July.Then they made three in consecutive at bats over a span of five innings: doubles in the seventh inning Saturday by Michael Busch and Cody Bellinger, and a single in the second inning today by Christian Bethancourt.

Assad did wind up settling down and finished with a pretty good outing overall: Seven innings, six hits, three runs allowed. That’s the first time this season Assad has completed seven innings in an outing, and in general teams should win most of the games where their starter does that. But not if you’re not hitting.

Assad left having thrown 87 pitches. Here’s a summary of his outing [VIDEO].

Perhaps Craig Counsell should have left Assad in to throw the eighth, because Merryweather’s inning was his worst of the year — five hits and four runs that ballooned his ERA from 4.50 to 6.60. I’m guessing Merryweather won’t be getting any high-leverage innings for quite some time.

That inning might have been worse, too, if not for an unusual play. After Connor Norby led off with a single and Jake Burger doubled, Counsell elected to intentionally pass Jesùs Sánchez.

So the bases should have been loaded with nobody out, but Merryweather threw the ball over to Cody Bellinger playing first base, and Bellinger stepped on the bag. A bit of confusion followed, with the umpires conferring and then ruling Sánchez out. Unfortunately, I don’t have video to post here but what happened is this: Sánchez trotted toward first base but never touched it before the Marlins sent Cristian Pache out to run for him. Well... that doesn’t work, folks, the batter who’s intentionally walked has to touch first base before he leaves the game. So, on appeal, Sánchez was called out. Here’s how Gameday scored it:

And that broke Gameday, because Pache then replaced... nobody. (Pache eventually stayed in the game for Sánchez in the field.)

So that was entertaining, at least, and who knows how many more runs the Marlins might have scored if that hadn’t happened. It wound up not counting as a walk, it’s just... an out, as Gameday noted.

The Cubs did put a consolation run on the board in the ninth. With two out, Mike Tauchman walked and took second on defensive indifference, where he scored on this double by Ian Happ [VIDEO].

You can see Tauchman on second base when that clip begins, but the scorebug hasn’t quite caught up to that yet.

There’s one last thing I want to address before wrapping this recap. In the fourth inning, Patrick Wisdom was called out on strikes and then tossed after throwing his helmet [VIDEO].

I’m sorry, plate umpire James Jean, that is an (expletive deleted) call. Throwing your helmet is not an automatic ejection. It’s clear that Wisdom was just mad at himself for taking that pitch. At no time did he look at Jean or say anything to him, and the helmet didn’t come anywhere near Jean.

Jean is a new umpire. This was just his 29th MLB game and fifth behind the plate. While in the end this didn’t have any impact on the score of the game, umpires need to not have short fuses like this. I’m hoping the crew chief here, Todd Tichenor, had a talk with Jean after the game.

The Cubs didn’t lose any ground to the Braves, who also lost Sunday, but at this stage of the season they need to pick up ground. There are still 31 games left, but a 5½-game deficit looms ever larger with each loss.

The road trip continues in Pittsburgh, where the Cubs will open a three-game series Monday evening. Jameson Taillon will start for the Cubs and Mitch Keller will get the call for the Pirates. Game time Monday is 5:40 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.