If you’re looking for a microcosm of where the Cubs are at right now, look to what should have been a routine single to center field in the second inning of Wednesday night’s game against the Brewers. It might have driven in a run under typical circumstances, but it’s also possible David Hamilton’s base hit would have loaded the bases and left the scoreboard untouched, given that Pete Crow-Armstrong was fielding the ball.
Instead, this happened:
When one of the best center fielders in baseball — and potentially one of the best defensive center fielders ever — makes an error like that, you know things have gone awry.
But that’s more or less how things have gone for the Cubs for the past week and a half. Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to Milwaukee sealed a sweep at the hands of the Cubs’ most important division rival. It was, quite literally, a comedy of errors.
Crow-Armstrong’s miscue was the second error of that inning; one of the runs that scored on the Hamilton single turned Little League home run was thanks to a catcher’s interference call that put Sal Frelick on base. In the third inning, William Contreras advanced to third on a throwing error while he was stealing second base, putting him in easy position to score on a Jake Bauers single. In two innings, the Cubs granted the Brewers three unearned runs.
For Pete Crow-Armstrong, it was his second error in as many days. He dropped a fly ball in the fourth inning of Tuesday’s loss, and then let Hamilton’s single get by him on Wednesday.
“Yesterday and today are genuinely laughable,” Crow-Armstrong said. “One thing I can fall back on is that it’s never really a lack of focus, but trying too hard and trying to make up for the lack of production that I’ve given this team and this city.
“Not acting how I should, and I think anything physically usually starts mentally, and I think that’s just what I’m showing everybody right now.”
Crow-Armstrong was fined for his verbal altercation with a White Sox fan at Rate Field on Sunday. After making a leaping attempt to catch a fly ball off of the bat of Miguel Vargas, Crow-Armstrong shouted back at a female fan who heckled him. He said afterward that he regretted his choice of words.
It’s fair to wonder at this point if the distraction of those events has played a role in Crow-Armstrong’s defensive struggles in the Brewers series, but he attributed his errors to feeling pressure to produce in other ways because he has not performed at the plate. Crow-Armstrong has a .659 OPS through 50 games this season.
Things only got worse after the errors. Starting pitcher Edward Cabrera threw one pitch in the top of the fourth — a 92.5 mile per hour fastball that missed high — and then exited the game with a trainer. The Cubs dodged something more serious because it was a right middle finger blister, something Cabrera has been managing off and on before Wednesday’s start.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell said the blister got worse after the third inning, and the training staff attempted to alleviate the discomfort Cabrera was feeling, but after the first pitch of the fourth, it was evident that he needed to leave the game.
The good news is that Cabrera does not expect to miss a start. The Cubs announced Jameson Taillon and Colin Rea as the starters for this Friday and Saturday with Sunday’s starter to be announced, and Cabrera’s spot in the rotation wouldn’t come up until next Tuesday in Pittsburgh. Cabrera is confident he’ll be fine to pitch.
“I’m not worried. My mentality is in five days I’m going to go out there and pitch again,” Cabrera said via team interpreter Fredy Quevedo, Jr.
That’s encouraging news, even if Counsell’s response was a little more tempered. He spoke more broadly, saying that any time a pitcher leaves a start with a blister, his next outing is in question. The Cubs don’t need another starting pitcher out for any amount of time, but skipping at least one start might be an unfortunate necessity for Cabrera.
Where do the Cubs go from here? Forward is the only option. They have a much-needed off day on Thursday and then host the Astros for a weekend series. That might be fortuitous timing. Houston is 11 games below .500 and has a -56 run differential. If there’s a “get right” series lined up for the Cubs, it’s tough to pick a better one.
But what about the lingering effects of a bad stretch of baseball? The Cubs went 3-6 on their road trip though Texas, Atlanta, and then the south side, and a three-game sweep at the hands of the Brewers doesn’t exactly seem to leave them in a good place to get their first series win since they swept the Reds in four games at Wrigley May 4-7.
“When you’re rolling and you have one bad day, it’s easier to flush it,” Ian Happ told CHGO. “When you’re in a little bit of a rut and things don’t feel right, it’s definitely harder to process and move on and just chalk it up as one bad day.
“That’s the mental challenge of getting through it. You don’t have a lot of time, you don’t get multiple days in between games to practice. You’re always going to get results, whether they’re good or bad.”
When the Cubs started slow and were in the midst of a similar-looking stretch in early April, Alex Bregman insisted that his team was going to turn things around. The last 12 games have been worse than the April stretch in many ways, but Bregman holds to the same sentiments as he did just over a month ago.
“I believe in this group,” Bregman said. “If anything, it’s a good thing. Go back to the basics and get back to executing in all phases of the game. Not worried at all. We’ve got a great group in here. Guys have been through ups and downs, [they] know how this game works, and at the end of 162, the cream always rises to the top.”
This ugly stretch that started with the series in Texas has dropped the Cubs from 14 games above .500 to eight. More importantly, it’s cost them the division lead. They were 4.5 games ahead of the Brewers on May 9 and now trail them by 1.5 games.
The Cubs have righted the ship once before this season, and that’s when they went on two separate ten game winning streaks. The season is still young, but a slide like they’re on can sink playoff hopes if they don’t start winning again soon.
