PITTSBURGH—The uniformed cop came out of the visitors’ clubhouse shortly after the game ended. Turns out he was on routine business.
At last check, the Pittsburgh PD had not received an urgent request from Tom Ricketts to open an investigation into his team’s missing bats.
Would anyone blame him if he did? This is not exactly the bang for his buck—tens of millions of them—that Ricketts envisioned this season, especially after the Cubs ran off two 10-game winning streaks in the first 40 games.
The Cubs have now lost nine straight after falling, 2-1, to the Pirates Monday afternoon before a Memorial Day crowd of 22,174 in PNC Park. The worm has turned, and is currently lying in a hammock.
The Cubs’ only run came on Michael Busch’s solo home run in the fifth. They had just five other hits, all singles. Dansby Swanson chased a Carmen Mlodzinski sweeper that was well off the plate with the bases loaded to end the second. Michael Conforto flied to left with two on to end the third.
Those were the Cubs’ only two at-bats with runners in scoring position. Meanwhile, Brandon Lowe doubled in a run off Cubs starter Ben Brown in the third, and .139-hitting catcher Henry Davis hit a tie-breaking home run off Trenton Thornton in the seventh.
The last 10 Cubs went down in order.
“We’ve got to play better, we’ve got to pitch better, we need more guys contributing to good stuff, and as a coaching staff, we’ve got to figure out a way to get the players there,’’ Counsell said. “Offensively, we are equipped to be way more consistent than this and way better than this, and we need to show it.’’
Counsell has shuffled the lineup, most notably by placing Pete Crow-Armstrong in the leadoff spot. He has benched regulars in the name of giving them a “mental reset.” It was Nico Hoerner’s and Seiya Suzuki’s turn Monday, although they both pinch hit late. He has played two recent callups from the minors, Kevin Alcantara and Pedro Ramirez. Except for an encouraging five runs crossing the plate in Sunday’s loss to Houston, nothing has stuck.
About the only thing Counsell hasn’t done is ask to borrow Mike Vasil’s magic wand from the White Sox.
How long can this go on?
Maybe, Crow-Armstrong suggested, we were all a bit misled by those big winning streaks.
“I mean, it’s kind of felt like that all year, even with the 10-game winning streaks, like no one’s been hot at the same time, you know? Like, we’ve relied on Nico for a good bit here. We relied on Ian (Happ) earlier in the year, Buschy has been the one who is kind of solo driving the bus, he changed today’s game with one swing.
“We got a lot of guys that are capable of doing that, but it’s kind of felt like that all year. Once every guy in this lineup is feeling like themselves, yeah, it’s a dangerous team.
“We’re not used to putting up zero to five runs every game. We expect to have that game where we put up at least 10 once a week. We’re always on the verge of clicking at any moment.’’
There is truth in what Crow-Armstrong, who hit three balls over 100 mph Monday afternoon and came up empty, is saying. Hoerner and Happ were hot early, while PCA, Busch and Bregman were struggling, Bregman just now swinging his way out of a slump. Moises Ballesteros had a productive few weeks, then vanished, his great start lost in a horrific 3 for 51 (.059) slump. Seiya Suzuki was hurt early, and has been up and down since. Happ will take his strikeouts, but he’s currently on a 200-plus K rate.
“It’s all mental,’’ PCA said. “It’s always starting upstairs. A lot of the time it doesn’t have to do with the game itself, as you saw [last week] with me, and I think that’s an example of all of the outside factors that can affect somebody in the box that are just really naturally hard to battle with when you’re trying to hit 95 every at-bat.
“But everybody in this clubhouse has a real strong mentality, and that’s just another reason we’re not ever far off from just being our true identity, at its whole, at its best, at its fullest form.’’