Cubs takeaways: What we learned in 3-1 extra-innings loss to Phillies
CHICAGO — The Cubs faced three of the last four teams that played in the last two National League Championship Series during their eight-game homestand, and entered Sunday with a chance to win all three sets.
They’ll walk away two for three, though, after falling to the Philadelphia Phillies 3-1 in 10 innings at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs (17-12) finished the homestand 5-3 and will have a Monday off before they jet off to Pittsburgh to play the Pirates in a three-game set, their first against another NL Central team.
Here are three takeaways from the loss to the Phillies (15-13):
Trouble in the 10th
Cubs reliever Julian Merryweather struggled with his command in the 10th inning. And yet he was tantalizingly close to escaping the frame with only one run allowed — an acceptable outcome with a runner starting on second base to begin extra innings.
Merryweather induced a groundball from Trea Turner with the bases loaded and two outs, but Cubs third baseman Vidal Bruján slowly fielded the ball. That allowed fleet-footed Turner to beat out Bruján’s throw and the vital insurance run to score.
The play was ruled a hit, and Merryweather’s day was done after he recorded two outs and gave up three walks and one hit.
Bruján was making his second start of the season at the hot corner and just his 11th in the big leagues. The ball had a .090 expected batting average, per Statcast.
It was a tough moment, but ultimately, it wasn’t the back-breaking blow. The Cubs went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 10th, failing to advance Seiya Suzuki, their courtesy runner.
It summed up their offensive output Sunday. They mustered just four hits in the loss, and their Nos. 1 through 3 hitters — Ian Happ, Kyle Tucker and Suzuki — were a combined 0-for-12 with four strikeouts.
Ja-Mo[re] of that
It’s gone a bit under the radar, but, man, has Jameson Taillon been a stud for this Cubs rotation. With the bright lights of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” at Wrigley, Taillon’s outing was anything but concealed.
The right-hander hurled seven innings of one-run ball, allowing five hits and striking out two. His season line is a respectable 4.01 ERA with a 1.10 WHIP in 33.1 innings.
But those numbers still are a touch inflated from his season debut, when he allowed six runs on nine hits in 4.1 innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. If you take that outing away, Taillon has a 2.76 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP in five starts. That’s pretty darn good for a team’s No. 3 starter coming out of spring training.
The Cubs will feel Justin Steele’s season-ending injury until the July 31 trade deadline — there’s no question about it — but Taillon has helped elevate that group and keep it a strength.
Taillon reached a milestone, too. He struck out Bryson Stott to lead off the game for his 1,000th career K. Not a bad night for the 33-year-old.
One of those days
Pete Crow-Armstrong crushed an 85.3-mph changeup from Aaron Nola to right field in the second inning. He hit it 103.2 mph at a 25-degree launch angle, and it just missed the right-field basket, so he settled for an RBI double. The ball would have been a home run in five other ballparks, including Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, per Statcast.
Instead, Crow-Armstrong stood on second base, where he was stranded when Nola struck out Miguel Amaya to end the inning. Just a few days ago, with the wind blowing out, maybe that ball would have carried out for a homer.
The wind didn’t help either offense, but the Cubs also ran into some batted-ball bad luck. They drilled five balls with an expected batting average of .750 or greater. Just one — Crow-Armstrong’s double — dropped for a hit.
Of course, Nola wasn’t too shabby on the mound either. He entered Sunday’s game carrying a 6.43 ERA and a 1.61 WHIP, but he limited the Cubs to just three hits and one walk and struck out six. It’s fair as a fan to wonder “Why couldn’t the offense beat up on him?”
But they had some bad luck, as referenced above, and Nola isn’t a career 6-plus ERA pitcher. He has a career 3.75 ERA and has averaged 195 innings over his last four seasons. He is a proven, front-of-the-rotation arm.
The Cubs have run into good pitching performances on back-to-back days. Jesús Luzardo was solid for the Phillies on Saturday, and Nola followed that up. That’s the nature of Major League Baseball.