Well, at least it wasn’t any kind of soul-crushing, walk-off loss.
Today’s game didn’t look like a good one for the Cubs on paper, and it played out that way, but not quite for the reasons we may have thought. Carlos Villanueva was intermittently effective – hitting his spots, getting some swings and misses – and horribly ineffective – leaving pitches up over the plate, right in the kill zone. He was the victim of a couple tappers that led to a few runs, but, for the most part, he gave up a ton of runs because he got hit hard.
The Cubs did some nice things against Adam Wainwright, all things considered, and Starlin Castro flashed some great leather throughout the game. Nate Schierholtz popped another couple doubles. So that was good. Chris Rusin, outside of the inning he first entered the game, pitched well in long relief. Also good.
But, in the end …