MILWAUKEE — Postseason baseball can be wonderful. The intensity ratchets up several stages from regular season games and it can provide some of the best memories a baseball player or fan can have.
Postseason
baseball can be awful. The pit in your stomach you feel when your team, whether you’re a player or fan, just doesn’t quite have enough to get to the next level.
Unfortunately, the latter was the feeling for Cubs players and fans Saturday night in Milwaukee, where the Brewers won a battle of solo home runs 3-1 and took the first-ever division series between the I-94 rivals three games to two.
Let’s review the way the Cubs season ended.
The Cubs went down 1-2-3 in the first to opener Trevor Megill, the former Cub. Then former Brewer Drew Pomeranz served up a solo homer to William Contreras in the bottom of the first.
The Cubs came right back, though, and tied the game on this solo shot by Seiya Suzuki leading off the top of the second [VIDEO].
I don’t think you can really get this from that clip, but from where I was sitting down the left-field line in Milwaukee, it was LOUD. It felt like almost that entire left side of the stands, at least in the lower deck, was Cubs fans.
Unfortunately, that would be the only real thing those Cubs fans would have to cheer the entire evening.
The game remained tied until the top of the fourth. In the third, Dansby Swanson made a rare error allowing Joey Ortiz to reach base. But Colin Rea got the next hitter, Jackson Chourio, to hit this double-play ball [VIDEO].
Rea got the first two Brewers on routine plays to start the fourth, but Andrew Vaughn then smacked a solo hoome run to make it 2-1. After that the Brewers loaded the bases on two singles and a walk and Daniel Palencia was summoned.
Palencia got Ortiz to hit into this force play to end the inning [VIDEO].
The Cubs had just two singles between Suzuki’s home run and the top of the sixth. Then they had their only real chance to score following that home run. Michael Busch singled leading off the sixth and Nico Hoerner was hit by a pitch, putting the tying run in scoring position. But Kyle Tucker struck out, Suzuki flied to left and Ian Happ was called out on strikes.
The Cubs got out of a jam in the sixth. Again the first two Brewers went down easily, then Caleb Thielbar walked Sal Frelick. Andrew Kittredge was summoned and he walked the first Brewer he faced, Caleb Durbin. But Kittredge then got Blake Perkins to pop up to end the inning with the score still 2-1.
The Cubs went down 1-2-3 in the seventh. In the bottom of the inning, Ortiz sent a sinking liner to center, caught by Pete Crow-Armstrong [VIDEO].
Kittredge then got Chourio on a fly to right, but Brice Turang homered for Milwaukee’s third run.
All three Brewers homers came after the first two hitters in the inning were retired. This speaks to the Cubs’ pitching staff having a lot of good pitchers, but none, save possibly Palencia, who can throw 100-plus and simply put hitters away. The Brewers have a parade of guys like that. It’s something Jed Hoyer really has to address this offseason. Cubs pitchers had just four strikeouts in Game 5 and 34 for the series, while Brewers pitchers struck out eight in Game 5 and had 46 K’s over the five-game set.
Speaking of Palencia, while he pitched reasonably well in the postseason, he faced 29 batters overall and struck out just three of them. His velocity was down a tick or two at times. I wonder if we’ll find out that shoulder issue that cost him much of September was more serious than the team originally let on.
Incidentally, this play during Palencia’s appearance is worth a look. With one out and Chourio on first, Palencia got Contreras to hit a line drive right at Nico Hoerner, who doubled Chourio off the base to end the inning [VIDEO].
After Turang’s homer it was essentially over. The Cubs had just one more baserunner, a one-out walk by Busch in the eighth. That brought the tying run to the plate, but Nico hit a line drive right at Durbin and Tucker grounded out.
Brad Keller, who had a remarkably good season, retired the Brewers 1-2-3 in the eighth, leaving the Cubs one final chance against Abner Uribe, who was being asked to record a six-out save. It happened quickly — four pitches for Suzuki to fly to left, four more for Happ to line out to right, and just one for Carson Kelly to hit the ground ball to short that ended the Cubs’ season.
In the end, beyond the offense vanishing again Saturday evening, it was likely the injury to Cade Horton that ruined the Cubs’ chances to take this series. A healthy Horton available for even one of the games in the Division Series would have had a positive effect on the entire rest of the pitching staff. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
A few notes from BCB’s JohnW53:
The Cubs now are 2-22 (.083) in postseason games in which they scored exactly one run. All MLB teams are 53-428 (.108) in such games
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There had been just one previous post-season game in which all the scoring came on four solo homers. The Phillies beat the Braves, 3-1, at home in Game 4 of the 2023 NL Division Series, wrapping up the series.
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In the regular season, the Cubs have lost four games by 3-1 in which they surrendered three homers. In three of them, the Cubs scored on a homer too.The first of the three, and only one on the road, was on the South Side against the White Sox on Aug. 16, 2015. Jorge Soler homered with two outs in the ninth.
They lost at home to the Rockies on May 1, 2018. Anthony Rizzo homered in the first.
And on May 14 of this year, they lost at home to the Marlins. Seiya Suzuki homered in the fourth.
That’s about all I’ve got, the morning after. Like you, I’m still kind of numb thinking there won’t be any more Cubs baseball in 2025. While the team fell short of the ultimate goal, this was still a good Cubs season, 92 regular-season wins their most since 2018, and a postseason series win the first since 2017. It makes all of us want more, and hopefully Jed Hoyer & Co. will provide such a team in 2026. I’ll have more to say about that as the offseason commences, but let’s try to have some fond memories of this year instead of bad ones from this final game. We’re disappointed, of course, that the Cubs didn’t go farther, but that doesn’t make 2025 a total loss.
If it makes you feel any better (and honestly, it might not), look at the Tigers, who were the best team in baseball much of the first half, the first team to 20, 30, 40 and 60 wins. They’re sitting home now too. So are the mighty Yankees, who lost their division series to the Blue Jays. The Phillies had the second-most wins in MLB this year, just one fewer than the Brewers. They, too, will be watching the NLCS from home. The postseason is so random.
About the fans and staff at American Family Field: Brewers fans were (mostly) kind in victory and the staff, as always in Milwaukee, was friendly and helpful. I’m glad I made the trip north despite the result. Quite a number of my friends from the bleachers also traveled to Milwaukee, including BCB’s Sara Sanchez. I will say that despite Game 5 having a slightly larger crowd than the two at Wrigley, plus being indoors, Wrigley Field was louder for the two Division Series games played there.
Stick around BCB this offseason! We will, of course, have game threads for all the remaining postseason games, including tonight’s ALCS Game 1 between the Blue Jays and Mariners. There will be plenty of time to look at what went wrong — and right! — in 2025 for the Cubs, and to look forward to 2026. And I’ll revive my sleuthing series, so if any of you have old Cubs or Wrigley Field photos you’d like me to sleuth, send ‘em along!
At the end of every Cubs baseball season, I like to post a quote from the late Commissioner Bart Giamatti’s The Green Fields of the Mind. It feels appropriate on this cool October Sunday morning.
It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.
