It just felt like the tone was set for this one in the 3rd inning, which saw the Cubs gifted a run and an even bigger opportunity with runners on first and third and nobody out. Anthony Rizzo grounded out (Ian Happ rightly held at third) and then Javy Báez and Kyle Schwarber struck out in really, truly ugly fashion to end the frame. Immediately thereafter in the bottom of the third, not only did the Cubs return the favor by helping get the Pirates a runner at third, the Pirates got that runner home with a sac fly. And then got a couple more hits, including a three-run homer for good measure. Cubs opportunity? Wasted. Pirates opportunity? Capitalized.
Later – and it wouldn’t have mattered because the bases loaded anti-voodoo gets the Cubs no matter what – Ross really seemed to fumble one by letting Jason Kipnis bat with one out against a lefty, rather than bringing in either David Bote or Nico Hoerner to take the at bat (and, at worst, get a righty-righty match-up). That easily could’ve been the game there.
Once again, the Pirates responded immediately to the Cubs’ offensive flubbery by taking advantage of Cubs defensive flubbery, this time courtesy of Jason Adam who, uh, well:
Jason Adam’s throw to second, just a bit outside pic.twitter.com/IxazQ9ujRo
— Aldo Soto (@AldoSoto21) September 3, 2020
That preceded two more runs to make it a 6-2 game, and the Cubs made sure to ground into two more double plays before the game was up (they have the second most in baseball), just to really cement that this game was a dud. The Cubs had 15 baserunners today, while the Pirates had 14. You shouldn’t lose that game by four runs.
Series wins always feels so much worse when they go like this.