Dodgers give Tarik Skubal little run support in debut, lose 5th straight

CHICAGO — It is unclear what exactly Tarik Skubal did to the people of Chicago to cause them to boo him every time he showed his face before making his Dodgers debut on Tuesday night. He had never even pitched at Wrigley Field before.

Also unclear was the message being dragged behind a plane that circled overhead hours before game time. The banner someone paid good money to suspend in the air over the Dodgers’ heads was supposed to say, “The Dodgers Ruined Baseball.” But it had been loaded backward or possibly got flipped on takeoff, creating a word jumble to be deciphered instead.

Regardless, it was a banner day for the Dodgers as they welcomed Skubal to the fold. They welcomed him with open arms but little run support and lost to the Cubs, 5-1, extending their losing streak to a season-high five games.

“It’s a long season. Just a rut. It’s okay. We’re going to be okay,” said shortstop Mookie Betts, in another rut of his own (hitless in his past 12 at-bats and just 7 for his past 47). “I just know I’ve got to be better. I can’t speak for anyone else. But I’m going to have to help the team at some point. It’s been too long. It’s frustrating.

“But as far as the boys, everybody is in a pretty good headspace. It’s just something we go through. You never know what happens tomorrow.”

Skubal will probably be better, but he went an effective if not overly impressive six innings in his debut. He allowed two runs on four hits with two walks and six strikeouts.

“I mean, going to bed last night, (I was) excited,” Skubal said. “It felt like my major-league debut. Kind of same type of vibe in terms of the nerves running through. But I think that’s all good stuff.”

He struck out the first batter he faced as a Dodger, freezing Pete Crow-Armstrong for a called third strike on a 99 mph fastball. The next five Cubs went down as well, two more on strikeouts and one on an outstanding play by Andy Pages in center field.

“Tarik’s stuff was good. It was good,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Even when it’s not perfect, it’s still pretty good.”

Skubal rated his stuff “plenty good” against the Cubs, though his 13 swings-and-misses was one of his lower totals this season and he threw just 51 strikes in 85 pitches.

“I felt like I commanded everything really well,” he said. “I think you know maybe the low strike rate – I don’t even look at that. I don’t even know what it is. But when I was missing, I was missing in the areas that I was trying to go. There was just a few sinkers and a few sliders that can kind of flip at-bats. I probably should be a little better at first-pitch strikes. I think, especially second or third time through. I need to be better there. But the stuff coming out of hand was what I expect out of myself.”

Skubal proved his humanity when he left a first-pitch fastball over the plate to Dansby Swanson in the third inning. Swanson sent it on a 401-foot journey into the left-field bleachers for Skubal’s first hit and run allowed in his new uniform.

“Just trying to go down and away, and if he jumps it, there’s not much damage there, obviously,” Skubal said of the pitch. “Pulled it back to the heart of the plate, kind of not where I’m trying to go, and he put a good swing on it. That was, I think, the only really hard-hit ball today. But yeah, he put a good swing on it.

“If that ball’s down and away, it’s going to be a tough time to pull a fastball down and away, especially the way he did. But he put a good swing on it, for sure.”

Skubal gave up another hit (a single to Crow-Armstrong) and walked a batter that inning before going back to dominating the Cubs’ lineup. Skubal retired eight batters in a row before he walked Seiya Suzuki with one out in the sixth inning.

That walk set off the domino chain that led to the decisive run.

Alex Bregman followed with a fly ball to the wall in right field. Kyle Tucker seemed to be tracking the drive, but the ball glanced off the top of his glove as he neared the wall. The double put runners at first and second.

“I know the wind was blowing out a little bit. And honestly I didn’t look at the video,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But that’s one of those things where, if he makes the play, we’re two outs and a guy on first base, and (Skubal) is going to go into the seventh. So it certainly resulted in a lot more pitches thrown. And obviously another run. But Kyle is giving it his best effort.”

With the infield in, Skubal got Michael Busch to hit a grounder to second baseman Tommy Edman. Edman threw home for the second out of the inning.

When Nico Hoerner chopped a ball off home plate and high over the mound, though, Edman charged in but couldn’t make the play. Bregman scored the go-ahead run. Roberts briefly questioned second-base umpire Brian O’Nora on whether Busch had interfered with Edman but got nowhere.

That is where the Dodgers’ offense got most of the night as well.

Another target of Wrigley ire, Tucker, matched Swanson’s home run with one of his own in the second inning. Tucker also had a single off Cubs starter Javier Assad. But the rest of the Dodgers managed just two hits of their own against Assad and the Cubs’ bullpen, none after Freddie Freeman extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a two-out single in the sixth inning.

Tucker was the only Dodger to touch second base on Tuesday.

The Cubs settled matters with two runs off Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips in the seventh and a solo homer by Hoerner off Edwin Diaz in the eighth.

“There’s certainly no panic,” Roberts said of the losing streak. “We’ve been through a lot of these things, this core group of guys. I think that you just got to kind of reset, flush it, find a way to win a game, and not let it just compound.

“It never feels good to lose. But we’ve still got good players. … My focus right now is just forget about these last five games and be ready for tomorrow.”