Chicago Cubs' bullpen faltes in loss to Marlins
It's tough to have both a freeze-up and a meltdown on the same night, especially when it's 44 degrees with a wind-chill factor 38.
The Chicago Cubs managed both Monday night, when their biggest concern might have been a letdown against the Miami Marlins at Wrigley Field.
They lost leads of 3-0 and 4-3 and fell 6-5 with a nutty top of the ninth inning dooming them.
First the meltdown. Closer Pedro Strop entered the game with the Cubs ahead 4-3. Strop went walk, walk and single to load the bases before getting tagged with a blown save when he walked in the tying run.
Next the freeze-up. Lefty Kyle Ryan came in, and he gave up a run-scoring groundout to Miguel Rojas to put runners on second and third.
Martin Prado grounded back to Ryan, who wound up getting a double play. Good, right? Not so much.
Ryan fielded the ball and had runner Neil Walker dead to rights between third and home. Ryan looked at Walker but inexplicably threw to first base instead for the out there. The Cubs wound up getting the other runner at third base, but not before Walker scored.
The real shame for the Cubs was that Kris Bryant homered in the bottom of the ninth, and the Cubs fell short with a man on base.
"Froze," Ryan said. "I knew the whole situation. Just froze. Checked him (Walker). Ran through my mind. Froze. It's still a double play, but the run scored. KB hit a homer. Could have been a tie game. So, yeah, I was a little upset."
The Cubs (19-13) had their winning streak snapped at seven, and they fell out of first place by one-half game as the St. Louis Cardinals (21-14) beat the Phillies.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon used the word "weird" to describe things. The Cubs staked lefty Cole Hamels to a 3-0 lead in the first but could not take advantage of the 10 walks Miami pitchers gave them.
"All this little innuendo, man, was weird tonight," Maddon said. "We had a chance to win the game tonight. We should have won the game, but we did not in spite of missed opportunities and getting the right guy in the game in the ninth inning.
There was one positive milestone for the Cubs. Anthony Rizzo homered in the first. It was his 200th career homer and his 199th as a member of the Cubs.
"Give credit to the Marlins," he said. "They fought. They didn't cave in there in the ninth. We made it interesting as well, and we came up short."
On the 200th homer, he said: "It feels crazy. Lot of healthy years that I pride myself in. I just want to keep playing at a high level for a long time."
Hamels looked at the strange night philosophically.
"It's still that part of the season where weather is going to come and go, and you just have to manage," he said. "There's no way you can look at something as being too difficult or an excuse for a reason why we didn't play or didn't go smoothly.
"This is baseball. Things aren't going to go smoothly. That's why it's a long season. It's just a matter of being smart and trying to keep guys off the basepaths and executing pitches."