While I was hate-watching the Cubs’ 12-1 loss to the Pirates Tuesday evening, I was ruminating about different ways to write this recap.
I thought about doing this:
Yeah. Just that and nothing else. Oh, and the usual end note about the next game.
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Then I considered a “do-it-yourself” recap like this one from four years ago where I give you drop-down choices so you can, well, do it yourself.
But, while those are fun, they are also kind of labor-intensive and honestly, this game didn’t deserve that much work.
I could do such a recap in haiku. Again, kind of labor-intensive.
Instead you are going to get a more-or-less conventional recap of this awful game and I’ll give you this: If the Cubs lose their 11th straight Wednesday in Pittsburgh, I’ll do one of the above styles in recapping. You will get to pick which one, or maybe a different one! There’s a poll at the bottom of this recap.
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Oh, and you certainly know the song where I got the headline from:
The song talks about angels wanting to wear red shoes. Well, in MLB the Angels do wear red shoes. At this time there is exactly one player on the Angels who used to be a Cub — Jorge Soler. And there’s exactly one player on the Cubs who used to be an Angel — Jacob Webb.
Can you tell I’m trying to NOT discuss this game?
Well, guess I’d better get to it, then.
Jordan Wicks, returning to the big leagues, was just awful. Everyone could have gone home after he gave up five runs in the first inning, because I’m pretty sure everyone knew the Cubs weren’t going to score five runs in this game. (The Cubs have overcome one five-run deficit this year, this game against the Pirates at Wrigley in April. But that was April.
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Wicks’ outing is being discussed over at BCB After Dark, so weigh in if you haven’t.
Here, have a look at the Cubs’ only RBI of the game, Ian Happ doubling in Alex Bregman, who had also doubled [VIDEO].
It got so bad that Craig Counsell got himself tossed in the ninth [VIDEO].
What apparently happened there is that Kevin Alcántara wanted to challenge a pitch, but the umpires ruled he had help from Dansby Swanson, who was on first base, and negated the challenge.
Alcántara shouldn’t have bothered, the pitch (number 6 below) was well into the strike zone:
You’ll notice I left out a lot of stuff there. Did you really want to read about Daniel Palencia coming into a game that was 9-1 and making it 10-1 by allowing a homer to Spencer Horwitz?
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On the broadcast, Jim Deshaies speculated that Palencia was in the game in the seventh not just to give him some work, but to set up a position player throwing the eighth. Now that, at least, would have been entertaining. It likely would have been Michael Conforto. Instead, we got Hoby Milner, who has been one of the pitchers who’s been pretty solid lately. In this one? Nope, he gave up two runs. At least a position player doing that might have injected a bit of fun into this slog of a game.
Here are Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
Basically, that was 90 seconds’ worth of “We have to stop sucking.”
BCB’s JohnW53 has this note on the streak:
This is the Cubs’ 19th double-digit losing streak since the Modern Era began in 1901. It is their fifth since 2000: 12 games in 2012, 11 and 12 in that order in 2021 and 10 in 2022. Six of the previous 18 ended at 10 games.
The franchise record for consecutive defeats is 14, which you might remember was set at the very beginning of the 1997 season, the team starting 0-14. Let’s not get there.
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The loss dropped the Cubs into a last-place tie in the NL Central with the Pirates, both teams at 29-26, both 4.5 games behind the first-place Brewers. Obviously, with 107 games to go, that is not an insurmountable deficit. So why does it feel that way?
Once again, the Cubs will try to break this streak Wednesday evening in Pittsburgh. Jameson Taillon will start for the Cubs and Bubba Chandler goes for the Pirates. Game time is again 5:40 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
