Despite a great start from Jameson Taillon, the Cubs’ six-game winning streak came to an end.
Let’s get this out of the way first thing.
Jameson Taillon had thrown seven outstanding innings, 89 pitches, 61 strikes.
Should he have thrown another one? The numbers say no. Taillon has thrown more than 100 pitches once this year, 105 vs. the Cardinals back in May, and since then his game high has been 96, last month against the Tigers.
So 89 pitches it was, and the Cubs bullpen has been really good lately, in particular Jorge López, who had allowed just two runs in 21 appearances (23⅔ innings) as a Cub. It seemed like the logical, correct thing to do... only in this game it wasn’t, because the Pirates blasted two home runs and scored four off López and dealt the Cubs a stunning 5-3 defeat.
Taillon and Jared Jones matched zeroes for the first two innings, with Jamo getting five of the first six outs on ground balls. In the third, the Pirates put a pair of runners on with the help of a rare Isaac Paredes error, but did not score.
The Cubs took the lead in the bottom of the inning on this line-drive homer by Dansby Swanson [VIDEO].
Check this out. That ball wasn’t hit very hard, or very high, and it would have been a home run... only in Wrigley Field:
In the fifth, the Cubs started flashing some glove. Look how far Michael Busch ranges to catch this soft line drive [VIDEO].
In the bottom of the fifth, the Cubs extended their lead. Swanson singled with one out and Pete Crow-Armstrong was hit by a pitch. Miguel Amaya then hit a ground ball to short that appeared to be an inning-ending double play, but PCA, with his speed, had beat the throw to second base.
So instead of the inning being over, there were Cubs on second and third with two out.
Both Swanson and PCA scored on this triple by Ian Happ [VIDEO].
Taillon, as noted, was breezing and got help from Isaac Paredes in the seventh [VIDEO].
And then, more brilliant play from Busch on the next Pirates hitter [VIDEO].
Here’s a summary of Taillon’s outing [VIDEO].
One last note on Taillon’s great start from BCB’s JohnW53:
This was just the 17th game of the season in which a Cubs starter did not allow a run and pitched at least six innings. It was the first in 43 games, since July 12, when Kyle Hendricks (seven innings) was the third straight to do it, after Shota Imanaga (six) and Justin Steele (seven) the two previous days.
Taillon did it twice before, at home vs. the Brewers on May 4 (6) and June 11 at Tampa (6).
Nico Hoerner doubled to lead off the seventh but was stranded. That, unfortunately, turned out to be important when Lopez had his disastrous eighth. The first hit in the inning was a soft liner to center and then a little dribbler down the third-base line put runners on first and second. A three-run homer by Bryan Reynolds that followed was bad enough — that would have only tied the game — but one out later Andrew McCutchen put one in the bleachers to give the Pirates the lead. That was McCutchen’s 31st career homer against the Cubs and 17th at Wrigley Fied and while McCutchen is a good guy and easy to root for when the Pirates aren’t playing the Cubs, I could have done without that.
Still, there’s just a one-run deficit going to the bottom of the eighth. But unlike last week at PNC Park, the Cubs could do nothing against Aroldis Chapman save a two-out walk by Seiya Suzuki, and then Shawn Armstrong issued a leadoff walk in the ninth which wound up being the Pirates’ fifth run after two ground outs and an RBI single by Nick Gonzales.
The Cubs had one last chance in the bottom of the ninth, but went down 1-2-3 and that, as they say, was that. Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
Since this is out there I thought I’d share it with you, if you haven’t yet seen it:
Yeah, thanks, OptaSTATS. Dig the knife in deeper.
This loss wasn’t the end of the Cubs’ postseason hopes. They can still win two of three in this series, and if they do that, it’s what could have been expected. They’re 3½ games behind the Braves (who play the Rockies this week) and three games behind the Mets.
Unfortunately:
That will give us the THIRD Kyle Hendricks/Paul Skenes matchup of this season. The Pirates won the first one 7-0, May 17 at Wrigley Field, with Skenes no-hitting the Cubs for six innings. The second was the Cubs’ crazy 14-10 comeback win at PNC Park last week. So one thing I think we can say about this third matchup — it’s likely to be highly entertaining. Hopefully, The Professor has one last great outing in him and the Cubs can get to Skenes.
