By the time the game ended, it had kinda gotten away from looking like a decent competition, but it wasn’t that way for a long time.
My least favorite kind of loss to discuss is the kind where all of the three “things” happened: the Cubs screwed up a lot, the Cubs got screwed in some rules/umps/fairness way, and the luck dragons screwed their way into things, too.
Invariably, people get angry when you point out the fairness screwing (umpires, in this case) and the luck screwing (so many of the Nats’ early hits were lucky), because they think you’re making excuses for the Cubs. I’m not. I’m just noting that, sometimes you play a bad game and still win, because you don’t *also* get screwed by the other stuff.
Anyway. In this case, yes, the Cubs flubbed repeatedly on their own, and maybe they would have lost even with better calls and better luck. I’m not having that fight, especially in defense of a team that did not play particular well today (and played poorly yesterday). Despite a number of great opportunities to bring the game much closer, the Cubs could not come through in the big spots. And, even as he had some hard luck, Jose Quintana also walked too many, missed spots, and gave up enough early damage to put the Cubs in a big hole.
In combo, it was just one of those games that makes me angry.