The … bullpen didn’t blow it? Are we there yet? Can I say that and a tiny part of you shakes off this loss just a little more quickly?
Anyway, yeah, the Cubs lost horribly and in embarrassing fashion tonight, happily handing the Braves their first win on the season.
Do you like grossly inauspicious starts? Because, man, this was the game for you. Mark Zagunis dropped a pop up down the left field line by the Braves’ first batter of the game, Ender Inciarte, who then homered on the next pitch. It was a symbol of the derpery that was to befall the Cubs over the course of that four-run first inning, with errors and misjudgments and poor communication yielding a thud long before the bullpen had a chance to blow anything.
It only got worse from there, with more errors, more mental mistakes, and more of those plays that didn’t technically become “errors,” but yeah they were errors.
Kyle Hendricks was not at his sharpest either, but it’s so hard to judge when everything is immediately falling apart behind you.