Well, come on. You didn’t really think the Cubs would defeat Jacob Misiorowski, did you?
The thing is, though, that they did pretty much hold Misiorowski and the Brewers even while the Milwaukee fireballer was still in the game. Then the Cubs had another bullpen meltdown and Milwaukee won the game 6-2. For anyone who thinks the Cubs need starting pitching help above anything, yes they need starting pitching help but if they don’t fix the bullpen soon…
Colin Rea’s outing against Misiorowski was admirable.
He matched zeroes for four innings with the Brewers starter, though he did allow four hits in that span. He got helped out by his defense.
Matt Shaw with this nice diving grab in the fourth [VIDEO].
Dansby Swanson, also in the fourth [VIDEO].
The Cubs had just one baserunner through four innings, a one-out walk by Shaw in the third. Shaw was erased when Swanson hit into an inning-ending double play.
Seiya Suzuki gave the Cubs the lead, leading off the fifth [VIDEO].
That’s a really impressive home run. First, on height, exit velocity and distance [VIDEO].
But also, that was the first time Misiorowski had allowed a home run since April 14, when both Andres Gimenez and Daulton Varsho of the Blue Jays went deep off him. That’s a span of 75.1 innings and 278 batters in between home runs allowed. Including last year’s division series, when Suzuki hit a homer off Misiorowski, that makes Suzuki the only player to homer off him more than once.
A 1-0 lead wasn’t likely going to be enough no matter how well Rea threw. Rea had reached 89 pitches after allowing a leadoff single to William Contreras and walking Jake Bauers.
Craig Counsell summoned Ethan Roberts, who has generally been effective this year. And Roberts got Andrew Vaughn to line into this double play — on a line-drive comebacker [VIDEO].
As you can see on the clip, that came really close to being a triple play. Too bad it wasn’t, because two pitches later Garrett Mitchell homered off Roberts to give the Brewers a 2-1 lead. Okay, that’s likely not insurmountable now that Misiorowski’s going to be out of the game (he’d thrown 107 pitches, a season high, through six). But Roberts then walked Cooper Pratt and David Hamilton’s triple scored him to make it 3-1 Milwaukee.
Jayden Murray replaced Roberts in the seventh, and allowed a leadoff double to Jackson Chourio. One out later Contreras homered off Murray to make it 5-1.
The Cubs did get one of those runs back. In the eighth, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman led off with walks. PCA took third on a fly ball, and scored on this sac fly by Suzuki [VIDEO].
The Brewers scored another run off Murray in the eighth on an RBI double by Christian Yelich that PCA nearly made a spectacular catch on.
Seriously: Jayden Murray is not a major league pitcher. I can only assume Craig Counsell left him out there for a second inning of work because Sunday’s a likely bullpen game and he’s trying to save arms (and he basically confirms that in his postgame comments, see below). I’d think there could be a roster move to replace Murray for Saturday’s game, though who that might be — I have no idea. The Cubs really are running out of useful bullpen arms. To circle back to what I noted earlier, this team needs bullpen help, and fast.
About the two home runs allowed in this game, from BCB’s JohnW53:
The two homers off Cubs pitchers Friday raised the total for the season to 125 — most surrendered by any team, and also the most the Cubs ever have served up through 82 games.
They allowed 121 in 1999 and 2000, 116 in 2006, 110 in 20022, 109 in 1966 and 101 in 1956. From 2023-25, they had given up 80, 90 and 97.
A couple of final notes. First, on Rea’s outing, which really was very good [VIDEO].
And here are Craig Counsell’s postgame remarks [VIDEO].
Newly-acquired left-hander David Peterson will make his Cubs debut in the second game of this series Saturday evening in Milwaukee. He’ll face Brewers lefty Kyle Harrison. Game time is 6:10 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
