Rozner: Cubs, Maddon fail to put away Giants

The Chicago Cubs' next party will have to wait.

For nearly three games, the San Francisco Giants' offense did virtually nothing against Cubs pitching, but with their season on the line they did just enough to extend the series.

It didn't help that it was perhaps Joe Maddon's worst game with the Cubs, and it came at a bad time, as he overmanaged the Cubs into Game 4.

It finally ended at 1:45 a.m. Chicago time, long after the Giants came up with 3 runs in the bottom of the eighth against the Cubs' bullpen to take a 2-run lead into the ninth.

Kris Bryant's 2-run homer off the top of the wall tied the game in the ninth, and then in the bottom of the inning Albert Almora made a spectacular catch in right field to save the game and double off a runner to end the threat and send it to extras.

It went to the 13th inning when back-to-back doubles won the game against Mike Montgomery, who was the real savior in this one, throwing 4 shutout innings and a total of 57 pitches before the Giants finally got to him to send the series to a fourth game.

Maddon used five pitchers in the seventh and eighth and only Carl Edwards was left as Montgomery - who warmed up several times before entering the game - finally ran out of gas.

Conor Gillaspie had a huge hit against closer Aroldis Chapman in the eighth, but you have to wonder why Maddon didn't go to Chapman until there were two on and nobody out.

If he wanted Chapman for six outs, why didn't Maddon just summon him for the eighth inning? Instead, in a 1-run game, he waited until Travis Wood gave up a leadoff hit and Hector Rondon walked a batter.

Chapman then struck out Hunter Pence but gave up a triple over the head of Almora, who entered in a double switch, replacing Jason Heyward.

That scored a pair of runs to give the Giants the lead, and they added another against Chapman, taking a 5-3 lead into the ninth. Chapman threw 21 pitches and allowed 2 hits and a walk while retiring a single batter.

The eighth inning was a disaster for the Cubs and kept them from clinching the NLDS in Game 3.

The Cubs knocked Madison Bumgarner out of the game but failed several times to deliver the knockout blow to a team that's won three World Series titles in the last six seasons.

Jake Arrieta gave the Cubs the early lead with a 3-run bomb, as the Cubs forced Bumgarner to throw 37 pitches in the second inning alone. That gave Cubs pitchers 6 RBI in the series to only 2 for the Giants in the series at that point in the second inning.

The Cubs failed to add on in the second and third and left four runners on base in the first three innings - three in scoring position - and Javy Baez missed on a safety squeeze that would have made it 4-0 in the third, though they did succeed in pushing Bumgarner's pitch count to 68 through 3 innings.

The missed opportunities loomed larger when Buster Posey's 2-out single drove home a run in the third and the Giants were back within a pair.

But when the Giants pinch hit for Bumgarner in the bottom of the fifth after 101 pitches, it marked the earliest postseason exit for the dominating left-hander since Game 1 of the 2012 NLCS, a span of 9 playoff starts.

Meanwhile, Arrieta came in struggling over his last 18 starts, dating to June 17. He had gone more than 6⅓ innings only four times and had given up 4 or more earned runs seven times, with 3 or more walks eight times.

Arrieta had also walked 44 batters in 106 innings in those 18 starts after walking 48 in all of 2015 (229 innings), and it was the walks and elevated pitch counts that were the cause of Arrieta's early departures.

The Giants cut the lead to 3-2 in the fifth after a one-out triple by Denard Span and a sacrifice fly by Brandon Belt, and those Cubs runners left in scoring position became more of a concern for Maddon.

The Cubs left another runner aboard in the sixth, but Arrieta made it through the bottom of the inning unscathed and Maddon turned it over to the bullpen, which had not given up a run to the Giants all season in 32⅓ innings, including the heroic performance in Game 2.

The Cubs never would have been in trouble in the eighth if the offense had done its job, but after three games the Cubs' pitchers are 3-for-8 (.375) with 2 homers and 6 RBI, while the rest of the team is hitting .186 (19-for-102) with 2 homers and 5 RBI.

The Giants are now 10-0 in elimination games during the Bruce Bochy era and they're facing two more in this series if they want to advance.

The Cubs are still in control and they didn't expect to win this game anyway, not with Arrieta facing Bumgarner.

But there's no denying that they gave this game away.

And now it only gets harder to slay the giant.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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