That was bad. Another bad loss. Listless and such. Frustrations bubbling up, maybe contributing to Javy Báez getting benched. But that was kind of the energy in this one – a combination of lifeless meh and simmering aggravation. I know it’s an oxymoron, but that’s what the game was.
Let me try to offer one decent, bigger picture thing: Adbert Alzolay looked really good tonight in his return from the IL, with a lively fastball and his great slider that got some ugly swings. We already know that he’s gotta improve against lefties, and we already know he sometimes has these really bad misses on his spots which batters are just waiting to pounce on (when you can’t otherwise hit a guy, sometimes you bet on swinging hard at a mistake in a particular spot). That got him tonight, and I’m not excusing those two bad pitches – it hurt the Cubs tonight – but I’m trying to take a holistic view of Alzolay this year. Yes, you want his performance to help the Cubs win in 2021, but this year is also about development for a young pitcher at the big league level. And I continue to love what I see, tonight included. Good to have him back in the rotation.
Oh, also, Brad Wieck was ridiculous – two pitches away from an immaculate inning. So that is also good.
Offensively, the Cubs got a little bit of traffic on the bases most innings, but didn’t do anything with it. The Cleveland pitchers are very good, yeah yeah, the Cubs’ offense is banged up, yeah yeah, but it’s been a really rough stretch. All month. June has been so very unkind to the bats …
Not even the beer snakes could survive this one:
Okay, but now what? pic.twitter.com/AhUWfxCb51
— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) June 22, 2021
That’s the end of cup snake. They just threw it on the field. Idiots.
— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) June 22, 2021
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) June 22, 2021