Today was not the Cubs’ finest day. Also, the offense has now scored just 3Â runs in their last 31 innings. We knew stretches like this would come with a young offense. Here it is. Every single Cub who took an at bat today – even the pinch hitters – struck out at least once. That’s pretty tough to pull off.
I’m not sure what it is about Mike Fiers that made him so unhittable today (and the last time he faced the Cubs). He had decent velocity and decent command, as near as I could tell, but the stuff didn’t look overwhelming. Clearly, though, the Cubs weren’t seeing the ball well against him, and Fiers mowed them down. Anthony Rizzo got Fiers for a solo homer, but that was it for the Cubs, who also struggled mightily against the Brewers’ bullpen, too.
On the other side of the ball, Jake Arrieta wasn’t terrible. The two-run homer by Ryan Braun was legit and earned, but the other two runs he gave up came on three dink-dunk-type hits strung together in an inning (with three stolen bases mixed in, though, which I suppose is partially Arrieta’s fault). Edwin Jackson looked pretty good in relief again.
In addition to a freebie little league homer on a Starlin Castro error and Anthony Rizzo error on the same play, the Brewers got a lot of love from the BABIP gods today.
But …