Cubs blanked again by Yankees |
CHICAGO - You have seen this story far too often for the Chicago Cubs (72-70) this season. Score a bunch of runs in one game to pick up a blowout win, and then go four or five games where the offense just can't get anything going. That's what has been going on against the New York Yankees (82-60) at Wrigley Field this weekend, as the Cubs have yet to score a run against the Bronx Bombers.
That makes 18 consecutive innings without a run in this series following a 2-0 loss on Saturday, and going back to their series finale against the Pirates, the Cubs are approaching 20 straight innings without a run. Those types of streaks can't happen when you are trying to make the postseason, but this wouldn't be the first time the Cubs have pulled that off as they have been shut out 11 times at home since May 8. That it is tops in Major League Baseball and it isn't even close. With a sudden drop in temperature the past few days, making things feel like fall more than summer, this wasn't expected to be a great hitters environment this weekend and for the most part that has been the case as the Cubs pitchers have held this high flying Yankees offense in check, including guys like Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. Today, Javier Assad took his turn on the mound as he came off one of his best starts of the season. Assad was far from perfect, walking three and striking out five in 5 2/3 innings, but it was more of the same from him when guys got on base. Assad pitches better with men on for whatever reason as he allowed just three hits, and one earned run to keep the Cubs in the game. He did his part, but the offense let them down again, which was a more frustrating loss than on Friday. Anytime you can get a guy like Clark Schmidt out of the game before he reaches five innings, you have to capitalize, as the young right-hander is sitting with a 2.34 ERA. The problem was that the Cubs were unable to score off him during those 4 2/3 before Aaron Boone made a surprising move and went with Nestor Cortes the rest of the way. Considering how things started for Assad and the Cubs, they had to consider themselves fortunate as the former Cubs farmhand Gleyber Torres opened the game with a leadoff single before advancing to second on a walk. Assad didn't help himself as a wild pitch followed that walk to move both runners up, with Austin Wells bringing home the game's first run with an RBI grounder after that. That was all they could do in that inning as Assad continued to do his best work with men on base. Following that shaky first inning, Assad was about as good as you could've asked him to be as he held the Yankees scoreless across the next four innings to give the offense a chance to battle back. However, with Ian Happ walking in the first and picking up the Cubs first hit in the third, the Cubs offense continued to search for answers as they didn't put enough pressure on Schmidt. It was in the bottom of the fifth when this game was lost, and the Cubs will be kicking themselves for what happened. With Pete Crow-Armstrong reaching base on a one-out single, it was a matter of when he would look to steal another base. After being caught only once this season, when Crow-Armstrong is on base, it is essentially a double, but don't tell that to Wells, who gunned down PCA to erase the speedster. That proved especially costly, as Patrick Wisdom followed that up with a triple, and instead of the game being tied 1-1, the Yankees continued to hold their 1-0 lead. Their wasted opportunity in the bottom of the fifth turned into the Yankees second run as Judge led the inning off with a walk before advancing to second on a Jazz Chisholm single. Chisholm was the final hitter Assad would face as Drew Smyly and the pen took over from there and was immediately greeted by a double steal where a Christian Bethancourt throwing error led to the second run with the Yankees now in front 2-0. Smyly managed to escape that inning without further damage before tossing a scoreless seventh despite walking a pair to set the Yankees offense up. With Cortes on the mound for the Yankees, the chances of him finishing the game were high, as the Cubs didn't have much luck offensively. Tyson Miller and Shaun Armstrong also saw time on the mound in this one, and they combined to throw 2 1/3 scoreless innings to keep things close and give the Cubs a chance to make some noise late. Three outs away from being shut out again, the Cubs needed to get to Cortes in the ninth, or this week's homestand would go down as a failure. It just wasn't meant to be, as Cortes retired the Cubs in order to lock down their second straight shutout 2-0. Chicago will now look to avoid the sweep against Gerrit Cole on Sunday as he will square off against Jameson Taillon.
