Chicago Cubs right-handed pitcher Jameson Taillon isn’t one to sugarcoat things.

He’s aware his first game of the season – an outing in which he allowed six runs on nine hits in 4.1 innings – wasn’t up to his team’s standards.

“I mean, it just wasn’t a very good game,” Taillon told reporters in Arizona after the Cubs’ 8-1 loss to the Diamondbacks. “I felt like they hit every mistake. Hit some good pitches, hit some horrible pitches I made. Just kind of recipe for a bad night.”

[Cubs takeaways: What we learned as bats go silent in loss to Diamondbacks]

The Diamondbacks – who feature the offense that scored the most runs in the majors last season – were tattooing baseballs off Taillon. They had 10 hard-hit balls (95 mph exit velocity or more) in the contest and were 6-for-10 on those. The Nos. 5 through 7 hitters in Arizona’s lineup were 6-for-6, too.

“We were getting into some bad counts,” catcher Carson Kelly told reporters. “Had to come over the plate, and they put some good swings on it. And hitting is contagious. So that’s one of those things where they get one going and then another and another. We just made some mistakes over the middle of the plate.”

Eugenio Suárez – the Diamondbacks’ No. 6 hitter – crushed two home runs off the Cubs starter. Taillon knows the damage that he can do, and was trying to paint the outer edge of the zone against the right-handed hitter to try and induce weak contact.

“So, just outer edge, get him to roll it over or something, and both of them kind of just backed up and really didn’t have the shape I wanted, either,” Taillon said. “So it’s hard to get your lines right when your pitches aren’t really doing what you want them to.”

Taillon has had an interesting last two weeks. He made a Cactus League start on March 9 in which he pitched four innings, then jetted off with the team to Japan and pitched 4.1 innings in an exhibition game against the the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization’s Yomiuri Giants at the Tokyo Dome. He made his final outing of the spring on March 22, tossing 4.2 innings.

It’s not a traditional spring, but one he insists had no bearing on his first outing of the regular season.

“I don’t really want to blame that,” Taillon said. “I still feel really good. I would just say it’s probably a little more about, like, timing and stuff like that. Less about flying and all that. We’ve had plenty of time to get that out, I feel like.”

Bad outings are bound to happen. Now, it’s about bouncing back.

“It’s the beauty of being back into the routine of the season,” Taillon said. “There’s going to be things that you need to make adjustments on and address. Unfortunately, mine’s after day one. But I’m confident we’ll do it.”