Cubs’ offense is anemic again
VIEW FROM CHICAGO DAVID HAUGH CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Stoic as ever, Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta walked toward the dugout after giving up his second home run of Game 3 on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium with a look that said he knew this wasn’t his night.
Anemic as ever, Cubs hitters looked bad enough for the second straight National League Championship Series game for Chicago to start wondering if this really is the Cubs’ year.
Will the best team in baseball finally stand up? Forget embracing the target, Cubbies. How about hitting a curveball?
Arrieta wasn’t Arrieta — giving up two long balls in five innings — and Cubs hitters continued to resemble postseason impostors by getting shut out again. At the scene of Arrieta’s first no-hitter, he received no support as the Dodgers gave their home crowd ample reason to start dreaming of a Hollywood ending in a 6-0 victory.
Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal drilled an Arrieta pitch 398 feet for a two-run homer to right center, a shot celebrated with such gusto the press box shook. The Grandal slam rattled Arrieta and the Cubs, whose offensive woes made a 3-0 hole seem much deeper. When Justin Turner knocked Arrieta out in the sixth with a 408-foot homer to left, the pit started to settle in the stomach of Cubs fans everywhere.
At scenic Chavez Ravine, the Hill worth beholding most was inside the stadium. Journeyman lefty Rich Hill tormented the team that selected him in the 2002 draft with a Clayton Kershaw-like performance, giving up only two sits in six innings.
“It’s the biggest game of my career,” Hill said.
The Cubs’ body language said, “We are confused and can’t hit off-speed pitches.” It shouted, “We have lost confidence and can’t beat this crafty lefty despite winning 103 regular-season games.” It screamed, “Mommy, make it stop.”
“We’re not hitting the ball hard,’’ Cubs Manager Joe Maddon said. “I have no solid explanation. There’s really no excuse.”
Imagine what Cubs President Theo Epstein must have been thinking sitting next to General Manager Jed Hoyer 14 rows behind home plate. Both still are calmer than you are, Mr. and Mrs. True Blue Cub Fan. The Cubs still can win this series — repeat, for emphasis: The Cubs still can win this series — but they must start hitting more like the team that rallied for four runs against the Giants and less like the one that got swept in four games by the Mets in the 2015 NLCS.
What happens to Cubs hitters in mid-October?
“We played well the first night and then Kershaw happened,” Maddon summed up. “You’ve got to be able to push back mentally now more than anything.”
With that in mind, Maddon reached into his baseball toolbox before Game 3. After “rearranging the chairs’’ in the batting order, as Maddon put it, the only two Cubs hitting in the same spots were Dexter Fowler and Kris Bryant at the top of the order.
“It is a little bit concerning because we kind of got stuck there last year [and] got to this particular point and ran into a hot pitching staff with the Mets [in the NLCS],” Maddon said.
So Maddon put Rizzo in the cleanup spot, moving Ben Zobrist to third. Javier Baez moved up to fifth. Jorge Soler replaced all-field, no-hit right fielder Jason Heyward and batted sixth with struggling Addison Russell dropped to seventh. Nothing worked. The result: Four hits. Russell feebly struck out swinging with two on and later left so Heyward, of all people, could pinch-hit. Even “Bryzzo” let Maddon down in the sixth when Anthony Rizzo struck out swinging and stranded Bryant.
The offensive juggling nearly had defensive repercussions. In the second, Soler called for Josh Reddick’s fly ball, but Fowler, the center fielder, shouted for the ball. Soler never budged, colliding with Fowler and falling down. Fowler meant well, but no way he would have called off Heyward, a Gold Glove right fielder.
Unlike Maddon’s recent maneuvers with the bullpen, nobody could accuse him of overmanaging in his futile search for offense. This was a manager simply hoping to avoid bad becoming worse. Yet the scorelessness continues, at 18 innings and counting.