Darvish roughed up again, Chicago Cubs fall to Braves 5-3
Two of the biggest-name free-agent pitchers in recent years took the mound at Wrigley Field Wednesday night.
The Atlanta Braves are hoping to catch lightning with former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel, whom they signed earlier this month.
The Chicago Cubs? They're still waiting for any spark of light from Yu Darvish, whom they signed at the start of spring training in 2018.
They'll keep waiting. The two teams waited out a 48-minute rain delay in the fourth inning, and the Braves held on for a 5-3 victory.
Darvish lasted 5 innings, giving up 5 hits and 5 runs, including 2 home runs. The Braves had done their damage by then, but Darvish came back out after the delay.
He gave up a run in the first inning, another in the second on a homer by Brian McCann and 3 more in the third on a 3-run homer by Nick Markakis. Darvish saw his ERA go from 4.75 to 4.98.
Keuchel (1-1), the former ace of the Houston Astros staff, also came back after the delay in his second start of the season for the Braves. He got the Cubs to ground into 3 double plays in the first three innings.
The Cubs didn't get on the board until the bottom of the fourth, when Willson Contreras hit a solo homer, his 17th of the season. Kris Bryant hit his 16th with two outs in the fifth.
Keuchel exited in the sixth after giving up a one-out triple to Contreras followed by an RBI groundout by Jason Heyward.
Darvish (2-4) was looking for his first victory since April 27, when he posted his most recent decision of any kind before Wednesday.
"There's other things we could have done to help him in the beginning," said manager Joe Maddon, whose team still leads the National League Central at 43-37. "We still have to be more offensive with runners in scoring position. All the double plays we're hitting into. There's all this different stuff going on. We have to do better overall. I just can't lay it on him (Darvish)."
Darvish said he was disappointed.
"Before the rain delay, I had problems against the lefties," he said. "In the rain delay, I talked to (coach Mike) Borzello. Now I'm clear against lefties. It's going to be good for the next start. It's all about the homer, that's it, it hurt me a lot."
The Cubs are going to need Darvish if they're going to make a run in a National League Central that nobody seems to want.
"It's such a balanced situation," Maddon said. "We've been playing some good teams lately, too. We've seen good pitching. I think it's going to be like this. We'd like to separate. Everybody wants to separate. I think if we get more consistent offensively, we have a chance to separate.
"If we don't, then it's going to look like this for a while. We need to continue to pitch. We're trying to help the pitchers out by giving extra days now and then. We're augmenting the bullpen. Defensively we've got to play catch. We just haven't been consistent on offense."