Well, if the bullpen was going to drop a stinker, better it came on a night when the Cubs couldn’t muster any offense anyway, right?
The Cubs win the series, but they had issues in all facets of the game tonight, and, thus, dropped tonight’s contest pretty convincingly. Kyle Hendricks had good stuff, but – in a very un-Hendricks start – didn’t have much control. The second of his two runs actually came on a bases-loaded walk after a nice at bat by Starling Marte.
And I shouldn’t dump on the entire bullpen, as it was really just Gonzalez Germen and Phil Coke who had rough nights. Edwin Jackson threw two scoreless innings with three strikeouts.
Gerrit Cole is going to do to many teams what he did to the Cubs tonight, so you mostly just tip your cap and move on to the off-day with the knowledge that taking four of seven games from the Pirates in the last week is a job well done.