Cubs waste strong Steele start, lose fifth straight
MILWAUKEE — Maybe it felt too good to be true when the Cubs opened the season with a 17-9 record despite a number of injuries to key players.
Now relatively healthy, they're back where things started, a .500 record, after their fifth loss in a row. The Milwaukee Brewers scored all their runs in the eighth inning to beat the Cubs 5-1 on Monday.
This game followed a familiar form. Starting pitcher Justin Steele delivered a strong outing, but the bullpen faltered and the offense stayed quiet.
Steele scattered 3 hits over 7 innings, with 8 strikeouts. He left the mound with the score still 0-0, however.
“I want to keep building off what I've been doing,” Steele said. “I'd say the past three or four starts, I've felt good, especially coming off an injury. I feel great. Velo's in a better spot than it was last year at this time, I'd say.”
Ian Happ kept the Brewers off the board with a diving catch to end the seventh inning, but the eighth brought a complete collapse.
Mark Leiter Jr. gave up a single and walk to start the inning, before William Contreras grounded a potential double-play ball to third. Nick Madrigal booted it for an error as the game's first run went on the board.
“Thought it was going to take a little bit higher hop and it just stayed down,” Madrigal said. “Definitely frustrating, that moment. It's a play I have to make, this one's on me today for sure.”
Hayden Wesneski came in and gave up a 3-run homer to Willy Adames on a 3-0 pitch, plus an RBI double by Jackson Chourio.
The Cubs scored their lone run in the ninth on a Patrick Wisdom sacrifice fly. Over their last 13 games, the Cubs have averaged 2.5 runs while going 3-10.
“We talked about margin for error and certainly when you're in this low run-scoring environment … that's how it works,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “Your mistakes are going to hurt you bad. It's easy to point to the eighth inning, but we had zero runs (through eight) too, so we all bear responsibility for that.”
The Cubs managed just 1 hit off Milwaukee's rookie left-hander Robert Gasser through 6 innings. He departed after Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger opened the seventh with singles, but former Cubs draft pick Bryan Hudson came in and retired the next three hitters.
As dreary as it's gotten for the Cubs lately, Steele tried to put on a positive spin after they dropped to 4 ½ games behind the Brewers in the NL Central.
“We've got a good club in there (the clubhouse),” Steele said. “We know it's going to turn around. It's going to take one inning, one game where we score 10 runs or something. We know what we have in there. Everyone picks each other up.”
This was Counsell's first game in Milwaukee since jumping from the Brewers to Cubs in November. The Cubs took two of three at Wrigley Field a few weeks ago, so Counsell's record against his former team is now 2-2.
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