‘One won’t kill ya’: Cubs will try to keep proper perspective after blowout Game 1 loss:

MILWAUKEE — Not even an hour into Saturday’s opener of their NLDS matchup against the Milwaukee Brewers, Craig Counsell had to be thinking about the best way to set his team up for Monday’s game. A shocking error by Nico Hoerner helped lead to a disastrous six-run first inning for the Brewers and was followed by a three-run second. Michael Busch’s leadoff homer was a distant memory.

Now Game 1, a 9-3 loss, has to be as well for this team.

“Even it up in the next one,” Ian Happ said. “I think that’s the beauty of the five-game series, one won’t kill ya. So move on from this one, take the off day tomorrow and get back at it on Monday.”

Counsell is going to be questioned by many for starting Matthew Boyd on three days’ rest. It was a surprising decision at the time, but one he sternly defended. Boyd didn’t believe it had any impact on his poor performance. Still, it’s fair to wonder whether it was the right call. The results suggest it was not. Hoerner, an elite defender and fan favorite, will quickly move on from his mistake. Those moments are magnified in October, but the Cubs can quickly eliminate any lingering sting by coming out on top Monday night in Milwaukee.

It was a quiet visitors clubhouse, but nobody was hanging their head. This is a group that’s fully capable of keeping perspective. That was one game. Until the opposition gets to three, the work isn’t done.

All season long, the Cubs showed impressive resilience. Eight times this season, they lost the first game of a series and then went on to win multiple games in a row against that team. In August, they lost the first of a five-game set against the Brewers 7-0, a game Freddy Peralta dominated. The Cubs then won the next three games.

They rarely let the bad feelings of a blowout loss bleed into the next game. Their ability to flush an ugly game has been looked at as a team strength. A nice mix of heady veterans with eager-to-learn youngsters led to a team that often showed up the next day ready to take on all challenges regardless of the previous game’s score.

The best thing going for the Cubs right now is that everything resets for Game 2. A loss is a loss, regardless of the score. Despite just getting two-thirds of an inning from Boyd, Counsell had to use only three relievers — Michael Soroka, Aaron Civale and Ben Brown — none of whom is expected to be working high-leverage innings for the team.

“It’s awesome to save some innings for the guys that are pitching high-leverage innings,” Civale said. “It’s what I did for (the Brewers) last year in the first game. Somebody’s gotta do that role. Every out is important. Whether it’s the game that you’re currently in or making sure the next few are set up for success.”

When Civale came in to relieve Soroka with two outs in the second inning, that could have led to disaster. But the veteran righty worked 4 1/3 innings, and Brown finished the game off with two frames of his own.

“Aaron and Ben did a heck of a job,” Counsell said. “Super important. Our relievers are completely reset. We can work with Monday’s game however we want to. When you’re going to your third pitcher in the second inning, that could be really problematic, even with the off days. So Aaron’s outing, Ben’s outing, especially Aaron’s, really, really saved us.”

These are the small victories a team has to take when they lose a game that was never close. The Brewers obviously present a real challenge. They didn’t luck into 97 wins and the best record in baseball. They’re an opportunistic group that does all the little things well and constantly puts pressure on the opposition in a variety of ways. Not surprisingly, they capitalized on a rare Cubs mistake. Chicago can’t allow that to happen again. They know that. Though Milwaukee gets credit for being the scrappy, small-market team, the Cubs are equally tight on the margins of the game.

Though no starter for Game 2 has been announced, the most likely scenario would be Shota Imanaga on four days’ rest. Whoever the Brewers send to the bump won’t have the type of stuff Freddy Peralta does, which the Cubs’ lineup — and most of baseball — really struggles with.

“It stings today,” Hoerner said. “All losses do, especially in the postseason. I don’t think it changes our work tomorrow or into our game on Monday. The task remains the same, and the group’s confidence is incredibly high, even though today wasn’t what we wanted.”

In the regular season, it’s easy to forget these types of losses. But everything is magnified in the postseason. Each loss hurts and means your team is one step closer to the season ending on a sour note. To avoid that becoming their reality, the Cubs are going to have to pull upon their prior experience of never allowing one bad moment to linger into the next day.

“The beauty of this time of year is one loss counts as one loss,” Dansby Swanson said. “I was making the joke to everybody that this is not Champions League, it’s not an aggregate situation. I don’t know how many of them understood that. It’s an easy way to flush it and move on and be ready for Monday.”

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