Cubs takeaways: What we learned as Phillies win series to cap long road trip
The Cubs haven’t played in Chicago in some time. Not since June 1, as a matter of fact.
They’ve travelled to Washington, Detroit and then Philadelphia, over a nine-game road trip conducted without an off day. They needed a victory over the Phillies on Wednesday afternoon to finish that specific stretch with a winning record.
That didn’t happen.
The Cubs (41-27) dropped this one by a 7-2 final score to the Phillies (39-29) at Citizens Bank Park and finished a long road trip with a 4-5 record.
Let’s take a look at what we learned from Wednesday’s result:
Troubling road-trip trend
The Cubs lost five games on this road trip, with a common theme connecting them. They didn’t win a low-scoring ball game. They scored three or fewer runs in all of their road losses, including this one on Wednesday afternoon.
The Cubs offense exploded in their four wins, tallying at least six runs in each of them. That’s not to say the pitching staff was all bad on this trip. The bullpen was aces, and the Cubs received some solid starts.
We can consider this an aberration at this point, but good teams must find a way to squeak out wins when the offense isn’t dominant. The Cubs have been able to do that at times, just not on this road trip.
Cubs fall victim to the ‘K‘
The Cubs don’t strike out a ton despite having some power hitters throughout the lineup. They’re just above the middle of the pack in total strikeouts, but their rate was sky high against Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo.
The Cubs struck out 10 times against the hard-throwing 27-year-old lefty, who had some great stuff on a hot Wednesday afternoon in Philadelphia. He also didn’t walk anyone.
It was the highest total of the season against the Cubs. Jack Flaherty struck out nine on June 8, another loss where the Cubs struggled to score.
Luzardo was particularly impactful early in the game, with seven strikeouts in the first three innings. He had three in a row during the top of the second after consecutive singles by Carson Kelly and Justin Turner.
The Cubs didn’t have many scoring opportunities during Luzardo’s six innings of work, with just one run scored during that span.
Ben Brown’s first-inning issues resurface
Ben Brown hasn’t fared well in the first inning of his starts. He had allowed 14 first-inning runs entering Wednesday’s outing and gave up three more in the opening frame at Citizens Bank Park.
Craig Counsell used an opener on a May 31 outing where he was awesome, throwing six shutout innings after replacing Drew Pomeranz. Brown got the start again on June 6 in Detroit and might’ve had his best outing of the season, allowing only two earned runs with seven strikeouts and just one walk.
The first-inning issues popped back up in Philadelphia, putting the Cubs in an early hole. Brown’s outing didn’t get much better with time. He got in trouble several times after that and gave up six runs over the course of 5.2 innings of work.
Brown has been dominant at times, unsuccessful at others. He seemed to have some trouble locating his fastball, which led to some hard-hit extra-base hits.
Counsell had Brown go back out for the fifth inning with a big deficit, likely in the interest of saving bullpen innings with four games ahead before a Monday off day.
