More woes for Chicago Cubs in loss to Mets
NEW YORK — The top of the order was top of the line for the Chicago Cubs again Wednesday night.
And just when manager Joe Maddon thought he had one leak plugged, two others sprung during a 9-4 loss to the New York Mets at Citi Field.
The Cubs lost two of three in this series, and once again they fell below .500 to 32-33.
Maddon's experiment of putting first baseman Anthony Rizzo in the leadoff spot looked masterful again as Rizzo hit the first pitch he saw from Matt Harvey out of the park. Second hitter Ian Happ followed with a home run of his own.
But two areas that have been good for the Cubs lately — defense and relief pitching — wound up hurting them in this one.
The Cubs made 2 errors, with third baseman Kris Bryant's costing pitcher Mike Montgomery an unearned run in the second with two outs.
The bullpen let a 4-4 game get away late, as Carl Edwards Jr. gave up a leadoff homer to Curtis Granderson (his 300th career home run) to start the bottom of the eighth inning. Lucas Duda hit a 3-run shot off Hector Rondon later in the inning as the Mets sent nine men to the plate, scoring five times.
“Yeah, I think primarily the defense hurt us tonight,” Maddon said. “That put us in a bad spot, even how I was going to utilize the bullpen. We gave them too many runs early, and it kept them in the game because I thought Mike Montgomery pitched really well. It wasn't about errors. It was about plays we didn't make that we should have made. That's the part that bites you a lot of times that you don't even talk about.
“Yes, bullpen wise, the 0-2 count really hurt us. It wasn't our buddy. We gave up a lot of hard contact on 0-2 counts.”
Things looked good for the Cubs when Kyle Schwarber crushed a mammoth home run to right-center in the fourth to put them ahead 4-1.
Rizzo was asked to assess things. He also homered in the first inning in Tuesday's 14-3 victory.
“We're just battling,” he said. “Battling, grinding. It's what it is until we take off. We've just got to keep focusing on that. We can go back to 2015, when we were hovering around the same spot, .500, maybe five games up (on .500), and we take off in August. This year the division isn't 15 games out of reach like it was in 2015.”
Rizzo did inject a note of humor into the proceedings. He became the first Cubs batter since Tyler Colvin in 2010 to have leadoff homers in back-to-back games.
“I am statistically the greatest leadoff hitter of all time,” he said. “I'd like to retire there and talk smack to everyone who tries to do it. No, you just go with it. It's fun. Obviously, back-to-back days, the dugout's way loose. Statistically, by the books, to leadoff the game, I'm the best that ever was, is, right now.”
At least the Cubs have that going for them.