BOX SCORE

MILWAUKEE — The Cubs were hoping to carry the momentum from their three-game, NL Wild Card Series win 90 miles north against their division rivals.

In just three pitches, the Cubs’ positive vibes evaporated — and Game 1 of the NL Division Series quickly shifted from trying to start on the right foot to damage control.

The Cubs surrendered nine runs in the first two innings as they suffered a gut-punching 9-3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers and fell behind 1-0 in the best-of-five series. They’ll take solace in the fact that this opening contest, no matter the final score, only counts for one, and they’ll use Sunday’s off day to reset.

Here are three takeaways from the loss:

First things first

Michael Busch sucked the air out of the raucous crowd at American Family Field with a lead-off home run, the first by a Cubs player since Dexter Fowler’s famous blast in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.

But less than 10 minutes later, life had been reinjected back into the stadium, and the party wouldn’t stop the rest of the day. Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang and William Contreras hit doubles on three straight pitches against left-hander Matthew Boyd to take the lead.

[Jackson Chourio injury: Brewers star exits Game 1 of NLDS vs. Cubs]

It wouldn’t stop there.

The Brewers put up six runs before they recorded three outs, then scored three more times before picking up their sixth out. Milwaukee’s No. 9 hitter, Joey Ortiz, had walked twice before the Cubs’ No. 9 hitter, Matt Shaw, had stepped up to the plate.

If you could have envisioned a horrible start for the Cubs, this may have been worse.

Short rest

The Brewers’ five-day layoff was a question – would they show rust? How about the Cubs, two days removed from clinching the NL Wild Card Series over the San Diego Padres? Would they carry that momentum over? Well, before the first inning, we had our answer.

And the rest questions only applied to one person – Boyd.

The Cubs’ left-hander was pitching on three days’ rest after throwing 4.1 innings of one-run ball on 58 pitches in the Game 1 win of the wild-card series. He was not crisp.

If he was in the zone, the Brewers were swinging – and making contact. They swung at 92% of Boyd’s pitches in the zone and connected on all of them.

They were on him, were relentless and chased him from the game after just two-thirds of an inning. It’s fair to wonder if the Cubs should have gone with Colin Rea (who tossed 1.2 scoreless innings in Wednesday’s Game 2 loss vs. the Padres) or Javier Assad (who last threw in the regular season finale on Sept. 28).

But the Cubs have been steadfast on their Game 1 starter for a few days now, even if they didn’t publicize it until yesterday.  

“Probably since Matthew got to the dugout in Game 1, he was thinking about pitching this game,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said before the game. “I think we were thinking about him pitching this game. That’s kind of how this all went down.

[READ: Cubs explain roster decisions entering NLDS showdown with Brewers]

“If this were a normal start and he threw 90 pitches, we wouldn’t consider this, but because he threw so few pitches, he knew he was going to be able to recover, and we thought he’d be able to recover quickly.”

The Brewers were on him and delivered a crushing early blow to the Cubs in Game 1 of this best-of-five series.

Uncharacteristic moment

The Cubs’ defense arguably won them the wild-card series earlier in the week.

A defensive gaffe by one of their premier defenders cost them an out and probably cost them a chance of ever getting back into Saturday’s contest.

Sal Frelick hit a slow grounder to Nico Hoerner at second base with runners on first and second in the first inning and one out. Hoerner had a tough play to try and convert an inning-ending double play but had a play to nab Frelick at first.

Instead, the ball rolled under his glove, and Contreras hustled around third to make it a 3-1 lead with one out, instead of second and third with two outs. The next batter, Caleb Durbin, struck out for what would have been the final out. Instead, the Brewers scored three more times and turned a nice first inning into an insurmountable lead.

Defense is the Cubs’ calling card, and their ability to turn balls in play into outs saves the pitching staff, keeps runs off the board and helps them win games. Saturday, that area of the game led to a crooked number and prohibited them from starting the NLDS on the right foot.

The margin for error is razor-thin in the playoffs, and the ball settling into Hoerner’s glove or slipping past him might have been the difference from a 2-1 deficit after one inning and a five-run hole and a raucous crowd behind Milwaukee.