Still can’t catch a break against Cubs
Weather, errors, scarce offense conspire in loss
CHICAGO - On a nicer day, Christian Yelich very likely would have left Wrigley Field a much happier guy.
You can’t put a better swing on the slider that Brian Duensing threw him in the seventh inning on Friday afternoon. Bases loaded, the Milwaukee Brewers trailing the rival Chicago Cubs by a run, Yelich unloaded in a 1-2 count and sent a high, deep fly ball to right field.
If the wind was blowing out, the ball might very well have clunked off the gigantic scoreboard that’s now perched atop the ivy for a game-turning grand slam.
But alas, the wind was blowing in — at a 16-mph clip at first pitch — and it was more than enough to turn Yelich’s drive into a routine fly ball. Jason Heyward camped under it at the warning track, and Yelich and the Brewers were forced to settle for a sacrifice fly and a 2-2 tie.
“That’s part of playing here,” Yelich said. “Some days it’s blowing in hard, some days it’s blowing out hard. Unfortunately for us it was blowing in hard today.”
Frustration has been commonplace for the Brewers against the Cubs in recent years, and it’s carried over again to 2018.
After Chicago answered in the bottom half of the inning with a run of its own courtesy of an Eric Sogard error, the Brewers could muster no more offense and went on to a 3-2 loss —
their third straight to the Cubs and fifth in six meetings to date.
Thursday’s loss was a 1-0 shutout to Kyle Hendricks, the third time this season Milwaukee has been blanked by Chicago.
The Brewers have scored a total of nine runs in their six games against the Cubs, with Yu Darvish rebounding from some of his early season struggles to allow three hits, one unearned run and two walks while striking out eight over six innings.
It’s been a hard and quick return to reality for the Brewers, who arrived at Wrigley Field in the midst of an eightgame winning streak after having whipped up on the Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins and Kansas City Royals.
“We’ve just had some stuff not really go our way,” Yelich said, referring to the team’s struggles against the Cubs.
“It’s baseball; obviously we’ve still got a really long way to go. So far it hasn’t gone our way. We haven’t played our best, and they’ve made the plays they’ve needed to make to win the games. Credit to them.”
Friday’s game had the potential early to be an ugly one for the Brewers, after the Cubs racked up four hits in grabbing a 2-1, first-inning lead against starter Brent Suter.
But then just as quickly, the left-hander got himself back on track. He limited the Cubs to just one hit and one walk over his final four innings and left with the Brewers still having plenty of opportunities to get back into the game.
Milwaukee went up, 1-0, thanks to the conditions after Heyward allowed Lorenzo Cain’s routine fly ball to right to drop in front of him to start the game.
Cain wound up on second, stole third and came in to score on a sacrifice fly to left by Jesús Aguilar — another drive that would have gone way out had the wind not been gusting so hard.
Neither offense could muster much from there until the decisive seventh.
“There’s no runs out there today,” manager Craig Counsell said. “In weather like this, there are not runs out there. I think it’s been pretty clear for both offenses.
“You drive balls — when the first-inning ball that Aguilar hits is an out instead of a homer, when the bases loaded ball is an out instead of four runs, it’s tough to score.”
The game swung on Sogard’s inability to corral what should have been an inning-ending ground ball off the bat of Javier Baez. Hit up the middle, Sogard got to the grounder and reeled it in momentarily, only to bobble it and not be able to get the out at second base.
Addison Russell scored, and the run stood up the rest of the way.
“I actually had it in my glove going into the slot and then it just kind of popped out when I was sliding,” Sogard said. “Tried to stay with it and get him, but it didn’t work out.”
Sogard, hitting .125 coming in, got the start at shortstop in place of Orlando Arcia presumably because he was a lifetime .313 hitter with six walks against Darvish coming in. Arcia was 0 for 4 with three strikeouts.
Sogard went 0 for 2 with Darvish in the game, but he did draw a walk against Steve Cishek in the seventh and scored on Yelich’s near-grand slam.
“It’s a tough play,” Counsell said of the error — the Brewers’ first since Sunday and just their second in their last eight games. They’d committed 21 miscues through their first 19 games, most in the major leagues.
Yet another run of tough luck against a team that’s handed the Brewers more than their fair share so far this season.
“They’re a good team, obviously, and they seem to take care of any little mistake that happens out there,” Sogard said. “That’s what good teams do.”