On a Thursday afternoon — a time not known for strong baseball attendance — some 35,000 fans packed the sunbathed seats at Wrigley Field.
Then they watched the Cubs get shut out for the fifth time this season.
Talk about a letdown.
“We’re lucky to have fans that care and are invested in this team,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said after a 3-0 loss to the Braves. “And I’d much, much rather have a fan base that’s reacting strong and wanting the best from this group and holding us to a higher standard than anything else, right? That’s what you play for and why the good moments are so amazing, and why improving is gonna be satisfying.”
With the loss, the Cubs dropped the series 2-1. Three of their shutout losses have come against the Braves, all in the span of 11 days.
The Braves recalled their top prospect, AJ Smith-Shawver, to make his first start of the season. It was the first start of his career in which he didn’t allow a run. After his 4⅓ innings on the mound, the Braves used five different relievers to finish the game.
“Obviously, you just try to bounce back as quick as possible,” first baseman Michael Busch said of the Cubs’ slump this month. “We do play some good pitchers, but you want to attack them. Those are the guys that, down the road, you want to face in October.”
The Cubs ran into some bad luck — particularly third baseman Christopher Morel, who crushed three balls the Braves caught. Other times, they were incredibly fortunate. Of their three hits against Smith-Shawver, one was a pop-up that second baseman Ozzie Albies lost in the sun. Another was an infield single.
Ian Happ, serving as designated hitter, had the Cubs’ only extra-base hit of the day, a line drive into the right-field corner for a double off reliever Pierce Johnson.
“It was a quiet day,” manager Craig Counsell said. “And the balls we did hit hard were either hit to the wrong place or at the wrong trajectory. And, ultimately, we didn’t do enough offensively.”
Those offensive woes amplified Kyle Hendricks’ first regular-season relief outing since 2016. After Hayden Wesneski (2-3) gave up his first home run of the season in the fifth during an otherwise strong outing, a right-handed pocket came up in the eighth. It was a bullpen game, so every other reliever who hadn’t pitched the day before and wasn’t reserved for high-leverage situations had already taken the mound. Enter Hendricks.
“There’s a game [Friday], there’s a game the following day, and Kyle’s a member of the bullpen and is going to have to cover innings and do his job and serve his role down there to help everybody here,” Counsell said.
Some of the issues that had plagued Hendricks’ starts in a rough season crept into his relief appearance, too. He gave up four hits and two runs over the last two innings.
The Cubs would have lost even if he had been stellar.
“We all want to produce — we want to win games,” Hoerner said. “Obviously, this home-stand weren’t the results we wanted offen-sively, or as a team. But as far as the process and the outlook on things moving forward, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of change on our end.”
Sometimes reading too much into a slump can lead to overcorrection or pressing.
“The answer is to just come back tomorrow and have good at-bats and swing at the right pitches,” Counsell said. “And that’s how you have to move forward with it.”
