It rained all morning on the North Side of Chicago, but by game time the rain had left the area and it became a beautiful, sunny, late spring afternoon at Wrigley Field.
The sky might as well have kept on pouring, because the Astros rained down three home runs off Shōta Imanaga and defeated the Cubs 8-5, extending the Cubs’ losing streak to eight.
Jake Meyers hit the first of those homers, a solo shot in the second. Okay, a solo homer, that’s not too terrible. The Cubs, meanwhile, had two runners on with two out in the first but (all together now) failed with RISP. Again.
And the Cubs actually took the lead in the bottom of the second. I say “actually” because when they did take the lead, it was the first time they had led in any game in the entire homestand. With one out, Moisés Ballesteros walked and Carson Kelly singled him to third.
Pedro Ramirez, starting his first MLB game after pinch-hitting Saturday, doubled in Ballesteros [VIDEO].
So that was Ramirez’ first major league hit, and yes, they did get the ball for him.
Kelly took third on that hit and scored on a sacrifice fly by Pete Crow-Armstrong [VIDEO].
That gave the Cubs the lead. Ramirez took third on that play and scored on a single by Nico Hoerner [VIDEO].
Michael Busch followed with a walk and Alex Bregman was hit by a pitch to load the bases with two out. Michael Conforto, who has had his share of heroics this year, could have helped put the game (maybe) out of reach, but he struck out to end the inning.
Still — a 3-1 lead! And, about the three-run inning, from BCB’s JohnW53:
The Cubs’ three-run second inning was their first with more than two runs in their last four games, since they scored three in the fifth inning on Monday vs. the Brewers. They had scored a total of four runs in 41 subsequent innings.
Today’s was their 19th three-run inning of the season. They have scored four runs in eight innings, three runs in five, and seven runs in one.
Could Imanaga hold that lead? Friends, you already know he could not. Here’s how that went down. He served up another solo homer in the third, to Nick Allen. Still, solo homers aren’t what kill you. It’s the three-run jobs, and that’s what Imanaga gave up in the fifth after two runs had scored on a Jeremy Peña single to give Houston a 4-3 lead. That might have been okay, but the three-run job, by Christian Walker, who already had two home runs in this series, was the death blow.
I thought at the time, “There’s no way the Cubs are going to score four more runs in this game,” and indeed, they did not.
The Cubs had put a couple of runners on in the fourth on walks, but Nico hit into a rally-killing double play.
A couple more things about Imanaga. First, his pitch selection, which as you see was mostly offspeed [VIDEO].
And more Imanaga facts from John:
Imanaga is just the sixth Cubs starter since 1901, and first in nearly 20 years, to pitch six innings and give up seven runs with six strikeouts.
The first five:
Fergie Jenkins, June 14, 1972 (11 hits, 2 homers)
Bill Hands, Aug. 15, 1972 (6 hits, 3 homers)
Kerry Wood, Aug. 5, 1998 (9 hits, 2 homers)
Matt Clement, May 16, 2003 (8 hits, 1 homer)
Carlos Zambrano, July 2, 2006 (7 hits, 2 homers)
Jenkins, Wood and Zambrano also did it at Wrigley Field.Hands and Zambrano walked three, as Imanaga did. Wood walked two; Jenkins and Clement, one.
The bullpen did a decent job in this one, until the ninth. Ethan Roberts and Phil Maton threw scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth. While that was going on, the Cubs did get a bit closer. PCA led off the seventh with a walk, and one out later, Busch smashed an opposite-field home run to make it 7-5 [VIDEO].
But the next two Cubs were routine outs, and in the eighth, Ballesteros walked with one out ane Carson Kelly singled. Kevin Alcántara was sent in to run for Kelly, but Ramirez hit into an inning-ending double play.
In the ninth, Caleb Thielbar allowed the Astros a run to make it 8-5. A leadoff walk helped lead to that, and, well, you know how those leadoff walks generally come back to bite you.
The Cubs did get the leadoff hitter on in the bottom of the ninth off ex-Cub Nate Pearson, another walk drawn by PCA, who had three bases on balls in this game. That, hopefully, is a good sign for PCA. This was the first time in PCA’s MLB career that he had walked three times in one game.
But he wound up stranded. Hoerner and Busch both hit the ball hard (99 miles per hour for Hoerner, 96 for Busch) but right at Astros infielders, and Bregman flied to right to end the game [VIDEO].
This all feels like the end of the world for the Cubs, but it’s clearly not, as we have just reached Memorial Day. At 29-24, the Cubs still trail the first-place Brewers by just 2.5 games, as Milwaukee lost to the Dodgers Sunday. The Cardinals, in second place, are a game ahead of the Cubs. Those are not insurmountable deficits, even if they feel like it right now.
To put this streak into perspective, here’s John:
The Cubs have tied for the longest losing streak in MLB history by a team that also had multiple double-digit winning streaks. The 1916 Giants won 17, 14 and 12 in a row (the last two separated by a tie) and lost eight. The losing streak came before the winning streaks, making the Giants 1-9. They were 2-13 when they won 17. The two subsequent streaks came in September. They finished 86-66, in fourth place, seven games out of first.
Hopefully, that fourth-place finish will not be the Cubs’ fate.
They will simply have to go on the road and start winning games, and doing so in Pittsburgh and St. Louis is never easy.
A four-game series against the Pirates at PNC Park begins Monday afternoon. Ben Brown will start for the Cubs and Carmen Mlodzinski goes for Pittsburgh. Game time Monday is 12:35 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network. The BCB game preview will post at 10:30 a.m. CT.
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