Chicago Cubs lose on Grichuk home run

The old saying in baseball is “it's how many you get, not how you get them.”

With his Chicago Cubs slumping a bit as they headed into St. Louis Monday, manager Joe Maddon chose to focus on the “how” as he was making a point.

“We've been through this before, where you go through a bad moment, OK?” Maddon told reporters before the Cubs went out and lost 4-3 at Busch Stadium. Randal Grichuk hit a two-out homer in the bottom of the ninth inning against reliever Adam Warren. The Cubs led 3-1 until Matt Adams hit a 2-run pinch homer off starter John Lackey in the seventh. So far on this three-city road trip, the Cubs are 2-5.

For Maddon, it all came down to his club's recent lack of hitting.

“For me right now, we're playing a good game of baseball, in all areas,” he said. “We're just not getting the hit when we need it, which I know we will.”

The Cubs didn't get it done in a pretty way all the time early in Monday's game, but they got it done, and they got contributions from a couple of players who have been struggling on the long road trip.

Lackey opened the game by getting Matt Carpenter on a groundout before striking out the next five Cardinals he faced. St. Louis got a run in the third before the Cubs went to work.

Miguel Montero singled home a run in the top of fourth. Addison Russell later put the Cubs ahead 2-1 with an RBI forceout. Russell entered the game 1-for-20 on the trip.

In the fifth, Anthony Rizzo made it 3-1 with a broken-bat RBI single. Rizzo entered the game 1-for-22 in the opening games of the trip.

Maddon sounded happy to be playing the Cardinals after a tough weekend in San Francisco against the top team in the NL West.

“I love playing teams like this,” Maddon said on his pregame WSCR radio show. “We love playing teams like this. They bring out the best in us. We played really well. I anticipate these next three, same kind of action. We've just got to get a couple guys unearthed a little offensively. Riz is down just a little bit right now. Addison has just not hit the ball like he had been earlier on.

“Overall, we've got to get the guys more engaged offensively. During the course of a major-league baseball season, this stuff comes and goes.”