Cubs clipped by Cardinals in Contreras' first start
Kris Bryant had only humorous advice to give to rookie Cubs catcher Willson Contreras before Monday night's game.
“He should have started off slower, like me,” Bryant said before the Cubs fell 3-2 to the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field.
Contreras made his first major-league start Monday, one night after hitting a home run on the first major-league pitch he saw, when he pinch-hit against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“Honestly, that was one of the coolest moments I've seen so far in my short career,” Bryant went on to say of the homer. “The kid's a stud. You can just tell that he loves playing baseball. He hits a homer. He goes down and catches bullpens. He just lives and breathes it. Advice? Just do what he does.”
Cubs manager Joe Maddon paired Contreras with veteran right-handed pitcher John Lackey, in part because Lackey could help the rookie through the game-calling. Contreras acquitted himself well. He threw out a runner trying to steal second base, and he made a good quick tag to get a runner at home.
“He was pretty excited,” said Lackey, who fell to 7-3, working 6 innings and giving up 7 hits. “The talent is there, for sure. Things are going to slow down for him. It'll get better. It was a good first step. Yeah, he was pretty excited.”
Contreras sounded upbeat.
“For the first time, it worked pretty good,” he said.
As for being excited, Contreras said that's just him.
“I'm a gamer,” he said. “You're always going to see me being high-energy, trying to win the games. That's how I play.”
At the plate, Contreras grounded out in the first inning, but he picked up his third RBI of the season in the third with a single to drive in Bryant, who earlier in the inning hit an RBI double.
That brought the Cubs within 3-2, as the Cardinals scored twice in the second, including a solo homer by Brandon Moss, and once in the third, on a leadoff homer by Jhonny Peralta.
The Cubs-Cardinals rivalry got a bit testy in the fifth. In the top of the inning, Lackey hit Moss with a pitch after two outs. In the bottom half, Cardinals starter Jaime Garcia hit Bryant in the upper left back, prompting home-plate umpire Pat Hoberg to warn both benches. Maddon, who criticized the Cardinals last September for retaliation, said umpires made the right call Monday, but he did not try to stir things up.
“It looked kind of suspicious, but I'm not going to go there,” he said. “It's up to them. I think the umpire did what he thought he had to do in that moment. I have no problem with it.”
The Cubs left two runners on base in the ninth. Albert Almora doubled with one out and went to second when Chris Coghlan was hit by a pitch. But Almora was thrown out at third trying to advance on a pitch that got away near the plate. Ben Zobrist singled, but Jason Heyward popped out to end the game.
“I have no problem with Albert,” said Cubs manager Joe Maddon. “I never want to coach the aggressiveness out of that young man.”
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