One day after Kevin Gausman had a strong debut in a Cubs uniform, Clay Holmes hoped to match that effort against the Royals.
Welp. Back to the drawing board. Holmes allowed four runs in four innings, including a home run by Jac Caglianone, and the Royals evened up the series by defeating the Cubs 6-3, ending the Cubs’ winning streak at five.
Caglanone’s homer off Holmes gave the Royals a 1-0 lead in the first inning. But you know what? The Cubs’ opponent had scored first in all five games of the winning
streak, so perhaps this could be another come-from-behind win?
Unfortunately, no. Holmes got touched up for two more runs in the second and another in the third, and overall it wasn’t a great outing. He threw 70 pitches (44 strikes). Remember that Holmes is coming off a fractured fibula. It could be that he’s still not 100 percent from the injury. Hopefully, his next start — which should come up next weekend at Wrigley Field against the Cardinals — will be better.
The Cubs did make attempts to get back into this game. In the fourth, Michael Busch led off with a single. He was forced at second by Alex Bregman, but one out later Nico Hoerner singled Bregman to third.
Carson Kelly’s double scored both runners to make it 4-2 [VIDEO].
So it’s 4-2 in the fourth — that’s not an insurmountable deficit.
Colin Rea relieved Holmes and got through the fifth and sixth scoreless. Meanwhile, the Cubs had cut that two-run deficit to one when Ian Happ smashed his 19th home run of the year [VIDEO].
That had to feel really good for Happ, who’s been in an awful slump for quite some time. This made it a one-run game — and Happ also had made this great defensive play in the top of the inning [VIDEO].
Notes about Happ’s evening from BCB’s JohnW53:
This is the 28th of Happ’s 1,253 career games in which he had a homer and a double.
It was the fourth this season. He did it May 2 at home vs. the Diamondbacks, adding a triple, then May 29 at St. Louis and June 4 at home vs. the Athletics.
He also did it four times last season, six in 2024 and four in 2023. He had 10 in 2017-22, with a high of three in 2021.
Unfortunately, that one-run deficit didn’t last long, as Caglianone smacked a two-run homer off Rea in the bottom of the seventh to make it 6-3. About Caglianone’s two-homer, two-double game, from John:
Jac Caglianone is just the seventh player since 1901 to hit multiple home runs and multiple doubles against the Cubs.
The previous one was Luis Urias of the Brewers on Aug. 12, 2021. The one before that was Matt Carpenter of the Cardinals, on July 20, 2018. He hit three homers and two doubles, the only one of the seven with a third homer.
The first five were Les Bell of the Cardinals in 1925, Jim Russell of the Braves in 1948, Paul O’Neill of the Reds in 1991 and Nick Castellanos of the Tigers in 2015. All six earlier games were at Wrigley Field.
Bell and Urias had six plate appearances; the others, five. Caglianone had only four.
And that was it for the Cubs, made a bit worse when former Cub Nate Pearson entered to close the game for the Royals. Michael Conforto led off the ninth with a double, but that was it off Pearson, who struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong to end the game. Pearson now has one more save for the Royals than he had in his season and a half and 30 games with the Cubs. (That’s one save for KC, as he had none for the Cubs.)
Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame remarks [VIDEO].
One point Counsell makes in that clip is, I think, very important — Rea went four innings and so no other relievers even got up in the pen. That helps save the bullpen for future games.
This one, I think, just comes in the category of “You can’t win ‘em all.” The Cubs lost a game in the NL Central standings to the Brewers, who won Saturday, and now trail by 5.5 games. The Phillies and Diamondbacks both lost Saturday, so the Cubs lead both by six games in the wild card race.
The Cubs will once again go for the series win Sunday afternoon in Kansas City. Matthew Boyd will start for the Cubs and Randy Dobnak goes for the Royals. Game time is 1:10 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network. The BCB game preview will post at 11 a.m. CT.
