On Saturday, the Cubs had two runs after two pitches in the game and ended up winning.
On Sunday in Milwaukee, the Cubs also needed just two pitches to score, when Nico Hoerner hit a 1-0 pitch over the wall (VIDEO).
That was good!
The rest of the Cubs’ 7-1 loss to the Brewers, however, wasn’t like that. That was essentially the Cubs’ offense for the afternoon, as they had just one other hit: a Cody Bellinger single, also in the first inning.
Kyle Hendricks started this game reasonably well, getting some soft-contact ground balls and fly balls. The game went into the fourth inning with the score 1-0 Cubs, and then it all fell apart. A William Contreras single was followed by a Christian Yelich home run that gave the Brewers a 2-1 lead. That was the first home run Hendricks had allowed all month of June, in over 24 innings to that point. A strikeout and a walk followed, then two singles made it 3-1. Another single loaded the Brewers, but Hendricks struck out Andruw Monasterio.
One out away from leaving the inning with only two runs down, which wouldn’t have been terrible. But Brice Turang then hit the grand slam alluded to in the headline of this recap, and it was 7-1.
From JohnW53 of BCB:
Cubs pitchers did not allow a grand slam in their first 74 games this year. Today was the third they achieved in 11 games since then.
They also allowed three in an 11-game span in 1993. They gave up three in 10 games in 1993, two of them in the same game.
Since 1912, the first season for which baseball-reference.com has game-level search data, the fewest games in which they allowed three grand slams was four, in 1982: September 11-14 and September 14 to September 18. They allowed two grand slams on September 14.
Everyone could have gone home at that point, because after Nico’s home run, the Cubs offense essentially decided to take the afternoon off. The only other Cubs baserunners besides the two first-inning hits were walks by Ian Happ (first inning), Michael Busch (third inning), and Miguel Amaya (eighth inning).
Dark Humor: This left them just 0 for 1 with RISP in the game.
Jorge Lopez, Drew Smyly and Ethan Roberts all pitched reasonably well in relief of Hendricks, not allowing another run in the game over 4⅓ innings, allowing three hits and three walks, with three strikeouts. It was good to see Roberts back in action more than two years after he last pitched in an MLB game in April 2022.
The best thing about this match? It was short, only two hours and 21 minutes. More information from JohnW53 from BCB:
This was the Cubs’ 511th game since 1876 in which their only run came on a home run. It was the 35th such 7-1 loss. It was the first in which they allowed all seven runs in an inning.
It was also the 18th game since 1901 in which the Cubs had a home run and just one other hit. The last was a 6-1 home loss to the Giants on Sept. 10, 2021. They won three of the games, 1-0.
Hendricks’ pitch selection was virtually the same as his last start (VIDEO).
So I’m not really sure what the problem was here, although the clip above hints that it might have been the location.
I’m sure we’re going to start hearing the “Kyle should just retire” talk again, which I don’t think should or will happen. At this point, let him finish out the year, then maybe retire and go into the Cubs’ front office, where I think his experience could be useful.
The Cubs finish June with an 11-16 record, which, combined with May’s 10-18, leaves them with a 21-34 record since the end of April, which is pretty, pretty bad. All we can do is hope that this kind of thing stops with the turn of the calendar and that July is better.
The Cubs have Monday off and then begin a three-game series against the Phillies, who entered Sunday with the best winning percentage in MLB (.651). So that should be fun! The series begins Tuesday night and will feature Hayden Wesneski starting for the Cubs and Michael Mercado for Philadelphia. Tuesday’s game is at 7:05 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be on Marquee Sports Network (and also on TBS, with no blackouts).
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