Wrenching series-sweep loss in St. Louis brings questions
At 1:54 a.m. Monday, the Chicago Cubs’ season officially hit crisis mode, a designation much easier to declare after the St. Louis Cardinals celebrated their second straight walk-off victory over the alleged team to beat in the division.
The same National League Central team that began a seven-game homestand Monday against the Miami Marlins was staring at fourth place but knowing, deep down, that its issues go beyond a quick glance at standings.
Nevertheless, the Cubs responded Monday even though slumping slugger Anthony Rizzo didn’t start in the latest saga of the Cubs’ scoring woes. Rizzo, who is batting .177 and went 3-for-14 against the Cardinals, was replaced by Victor Caratini at first base.
The Cubs provided ample power to compensate for Rizzo’s absence as they coasted to a 14-2 victory over Miami and snapped a five-game losing streak.
Ian Happ hit a pair of home runs and drove in five runs as he became the first Cubs player to hit home runs from both sides of the plate since Dioner Navarro against the White Sox on May 29, 2013.
Kris Bryant continued his power surge by smacking a two-run home run in the first inning, and Javier Baez hit a three-run shot in the third for his 10th homer.
Bryant’s homer off lefthander Jarlin Garcia was his third in five games and his fifth of the season. It also snapped a streak of 13 consecutive solo homers hit by the Cubs.
Baez’s 10th homer bounced in and out of the basket above the centerfield wall, but Baez left the game with one out in the top of the seventh due to right groin tightness. Ben Zobrist, batting second, reached base on a walk and single ahead of each homer.
Happ hit a two-run shot off Garcia, who had a 1.09 ERA, into the shrubs behind the center-field wall in the fourth. Happ’s threerun homer in the seventh off Tyler Cloyd landed in the left-field seats.
Addison Russell chipped in with a two-run double in the fifth.
Kyle Hendricks pitched eight innings of six-hit ball.
All of that was encouraging after the weekend in St. Louis.
The Cubs were April underachievers who allowed their malaise to extend into May, a month still premature to panic but not to wonder — paraphrasing late, great baseball philosopher Yogi Berra — if it’s getting late early out there.
On Sunday night, Dexter Fowler’s two-out, twostrike, two-run homer in the 14th inning off overmatched Cubs reliever Luke Farrell provided the 4-3 margin and traveled 351 feet, the Cardinals’ shortest homer of the season with implications that could last the longest.
In the Cardinals clubhouse, they used the word surreal and savored the special feelings that come with winning an epic game, already the fifth time the Cardinals have won in their last at-bat.
The Cubs, meanwhile, were forced to confront how they snatched another defeat from the jaws of victory — and such introspection offered perhaps the only potential benefit of getting swept by a rival 31 games into the season. The struggle is real. Had the Cubs escaped St. Louis by salvaging the series finale after Baez dramatically homered 12 minutes before Fowler did, they likely would have avoided the seminal moment the five-game losing streak can represent for them. Everyone could have fooled themselves by nodding along as manager Joe Maddon ticked off reasons not to worry, as if the more Maddon repeats himself, the truer his words will become. But getting swept by the Cardinals gives the Cubs a chance to designate denial for reassignment.
Maybe Fowler, the catalyst of the 2016 World Series champions whom the Cubs never replaced, can be the impetus for the 2018 Cubs to get their act together in a sloppy season so far defined by extremes. The Cubs are a potentially great team barely resembling a good one, a World Series contender falling short of the standard they set for themselves.