Cubs comeback falls short against Brewers |
MESA - With the Regular season less than a week away, teams are hoping to be playing their best baseball of the Spring in an effort to gain confidence going forward. Although the wins may not be that important, most teams would like to iron out the kinks as things will get serious quickly.
Unfortunately for the Chicago Cubs, not only have they gone into a late Spring slump, but they haven't been playing their best ball lately, which isn't something you want this late in the Spring. Looking to close out their home slate of Cactus League games against the Milwaukee Brewers at Sloan Park on Saturday, the Cubs offense was once again held in check most of day as a five-run seventh inning was the difference in the Cubs 7-4 loss. Making his final appearance of the Spring was top-10 organizational prospect Ben Brown, who looked to end his Spring on a high note. After pitching in relief most of the Spring, Brown made a start last week and looked great. He then went out and continued to pitch well, giving the Cubs four more scoreless innings with three strikeouts to lower his ERA to 0.69 for the Spring. 4 IP | 3 K | 2 H | 0 R Opposing him were Wade Miley and Joe Ross. Miley has been sidelined most of the Spring, and after going just two innings, it was Ross who made the biggest impression. He gave Milwaukee five impressive innings and racked up eight punchouts. Not only were runs at a premium early, but so were hits, as the two-out Michael Busch single in the second was the only hit for either side up to that point. It took eight batters for the Brewers to pick up their first baserunner, who came via the walk. After Jackson Churio's single put a pair of runners on, the Brewers had the first scoring chance of the game, only to have Brown escape trouble. The Cubs answered with a scoring chance of their own in the bottom of the third, as the Nico Hoerner single was followed by an error, only to have both runners stranded on the bases. With the score tied 0-0 in the fifth, the Cubs offense struck first, coming off a mini two-out rally. Miguel Amaya started that rally with a walk and raced home on the Hoerner RBI triple as the Cubs took the 1-0 lead. These kinds of hits will send Nico Hoerner to the All-Star game this summer Hoerner has had an extremely rough spring, so the Cubs are hoping his multi-hit game is a sign of things to come for the start of the regular season. Immediately upon taking the lead, the Cubs found themselves in trouble as Keegan Thompson was on the mound to pitch the sixth inning. For the most part, Thompson was excellent, as he has been all Spring, but he did allow a two-out homer to Gary Sanchez as the Brewers tied things back up 1-1. It was the seventh inning when things completely came unglued for the Cubs as it was the young fireballer Daniel Palencia who was the victim of that. A leadoff walk isn't how you want to start things off, but after Blake Perkins followed that with a single, it was the Brewers who had two on and no outs. Palencia responded by retiring the next two hitters and was on the verge of pitching out of trouble only to have Oliver Dunn come through with the go-ahead RBI single to put the Brewers in front for good 2-1. That was followed by a two-run Andruw Monesterio double and another Sanchez single as the Brewers pushed across five runs in the seventh to take a commanding 6-1 lead. The single from Sanchez goes in the books as the game-winner as the Cubs offense did their best to respond late. With Ezequiel Pagan adding an RBI double in the eighth to pull the Cubs within 6-2, the Brewers answered in the ninth, adding another run and having the Cubs down to their final three outs, trailing by five on the scoreboard. One thing you have noticed with this Cubs team all Spring is that no matter what the scoreboard says, they will fight to the end, and this was another one of those instances. A one-out single from Jake Slaughter put a baserunner on base for Chicago, as they were one baserunner away from keeping the pressure on. Joe Hudson followed that single with his second homer of the Spring to pull the Cubs within 7-4. Expected to share the catching duties in Iowa this season, Hudson has left a great impression on the organization this Spring and has earned every bit of the playing time he will get in Iowa. That homer would be the last of the runs for the Cubs as Tobias Myers retired the final two hitters he faced to secure the win. Despite the loss, the Cubs are guaranteed to have a winning record in Cactus League play as they will get set for their Cactus League finale on Sunday.
Ben Brown is going to be very good. pic.twitter.com/GQFvZpoMcm
pic.twitter.com/7NXS8P582C
