SEATTLE — To begin this recap of Friday night’s 6-5 Cubs 10-inning loss to the Mariners, I thought it would be appropriate to give you this fact from BCB’s JohnW53, because this is the primary reason the Cubs lost this game:
The Cubs’ 1 for 16 with runners in scoring position was their worst with one hit this season. They were 1 for 15 in a 4-3 loss to the Pirates at home on April 11. They were 0 for 13 in a 6-0 loss at Texas on May 9.
One for sixteen. Eleven runners left on base. The Cubs had 12 hits
and smacked four home runs. You’d think that would produce more than five runs.
It did not, and this game wound up in the “L” column.
The home run fun began in the first inning, indeed yet again on Pete Crow-Armstrong’s leadoff at-bat [VIDEO].
As you can see, that ball just barely made it over the right-field wall, and on the ninth pitch of the at-bat. More from John:
Pete Crow-Armstrong’s homer was his second leading off a game on the road and the Cubs’ 117th since 1910, first year for which baseball-reference.com has searchable play-level data.
Alfonso Soriano did it 12 times as a Cub; Dexter Fowler, seven; Ian Happ, Brian McRae and Rick Monday, five. Soriano hit 20 as the first Cub to bat in a game (eight at home).
PCA now has done that five times, tying for sixth most with Michael Busch, Eddie Miksis, Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes, Kyle Schwarber and Eric Young Sr. McRae had seven; Happ, eight, Fowler, 11; and Monday, 12.
It was also PCA’s seventh leadoff home run of the season. The Cubs’ franchise record for such things is 12, set by Alfonso Soriano in 2007.
The Cubs were not done in that first inning, either. One out later Michael Busch doubled and that was followed by a two-run homer from Alex Bregman, his 17th [VIDEO].
So the game is four batters old and the Cubs lead 3-0. This is good!
After the first four Mariners were retired by Matthew Boyd, things turned not good. Josh Naylor singled and Taylor Ward walked.
That brought up Cal Raleigh, who after hitting 60 home runs in 2025 is suffering through an injury-plagued, awful year in which he entered this game batting just .156 and over his last 14 games was 4-for-38 with 14 strikeouts.
No matter. Look where Boyd left his first pitch to Raleigh:
Well. That’s what you call a mistake pitch, all right, and even a MLB hitter in a horrid slump will hit that a long way, and Raleigh did, for a three-run homer tying the game.
The Mariners were not done in that inning, either. Cole Young singled and when Brock Rodden flied to left, moved up to second. That’s not something you see too often, that kind of tag-up, and it paid off for the Mariners when Brendan Donovan singled him in to give Seattle a 4-3 lead.
That’s where the game stayed until the bottom of the fifth, despite the Cubs having RISP in the third, fourth and fifth innings, and in each of those innings that situation happened with fewer than two out. They couldn’t score in any of them, and Seattle extended their lead when Nico Hoerner allowed Rodden to reach on a throwing error leading off the fifth. He was balked to second by Boyd, and that call got Craig Counsell tossed [VIDEO].
As you can see in the clip, Boyd asked plate umpire Brennan Miller for an explanation of the balk, which was not only his first of the year, but first in his two years as a Cub, and only the third called on a Cubs pitcher this year. And the expression on Boyd’s face after the balk call kind of sums up this game. Also — happy birthday, Craig Counsell, your birthday gift is being ejected! It was the fifth ejection for Counsell this year, tied for the most in a season in his 12-year managing career.
Anyway, that was important because it put Rodden in scoring position, where a single by Randy Arozarena scored him to make it 5-3. The Mariners were 4-for-7 with RISP in this game and… sigh.
Boyd’s outing wasn’t awful — six innings, five runs (four earned) — but it wasn’t really that good, either. Daniel Palencia, just returned from the injured list, threw a 1-2-3 seventh with a pair of strikeouts, so that’s good. Here’s his K of Arozarena [VIDEO].
Ian Happ brought the Cubs within one run with this leadoff homer in the eighth [VIDEO].
Happ has started to hit recently, a bit. Over his last 12 games: .286/.348/.548 (12-for-42) with three home runs. One of Happ’s late-season hot streaks would be quite welcome right now.
After that homer, again the Cubs put runners in scoring position. Hoerner singled and Pedro Ramirez walked. Nobody out. Great scoring chance, right?
Not so much. Michael Conforto popped up. Carson Kelly grounded out, with the runners advancing. That prompted the Mariners to intentionally pass PCA and face Seiya Suzuki. Good opportunity, but… Suzuki struck out [VIDEO].
Colin Rea threw a scoreless eighth and so the Cubs had one last chance in the ninth.
They made the most of that when with one out, Bregman smacked his second homer of the game and 18th of the year [VIDEO].
But the Cubs could not score again in the ninth, and Jacob Webb entered to attempt to preserve the tie for extras, which he did. That was Webb’s 24th consecutive scoreless appearance dating to the second game of the doubleheader against the Mets June 24 — a stretch of 24.2 innings in which he’s posted a WHIP of 0.932 and has 25 strikeouts.
The Cubs could not score in the top of the 10th and so that left the bottom of the inning to Javier Assad — oh, wait, no, because Assad had been optioned to Triple-A Iowa earlier in the day to make room for the activation of Palencia. Instead, Ryan Zeferjahn was given the 10th.
Victor Robles sacrificed the placed runner, Arozarena, to third. Zeferjahn got Julio Rodriguez to hit a comebacker. Okay, two out, runner on third. The Cubs opted to intentionally pass Josh Naylor to pitch to Leo Rivas, a backup infielder who’d entered the game as a pinch runner and remained as the DH.
This was the right call. Rivas entered the game batting .130 and had been 3 for his last 40 with 14 strikeouts.
Sigh. Rivas lined a single to center, game over. The loss dropped the Cubs to 19-14 in one-run games and 11-7 in extra-inning games. The 18 games in extras are the most for any MLB team this year. Also (Bluesky link):
And not only the four home runs, but all those baserunners and 1-for-16 with RISP… this game should never have even gotten to the 10th inning, the Cubs should have scored far more than five runs in regulation and won easily.
But they did not. The loss dropped the Cubs six games behind the Brewers in the NL Central, and perhaps more importantly, the Cubs’ lead over the Phillies for the first wild card spot is now just three games, as the Phillies have won seven straight. So it would be pretty important, I’d think, to turn things around and win the next two games of this series.
Which will be particularly interesting to watch Saturday, as the Mariners are calling up their top prospect and MLB’s top pitching prospect (fifth overall per MLB Pipeline), left-hander Kade Anderson, to start Saturday’s game. The Cubs will counter with David Peterson. Game time Saturday is 6:15 p.m. CT and Fox-TV (regional — coverage map). A reminder that if you subscribe to MLB.TV or MLB Extra Innings, you can watch this game via those services even if it’s not on the Fox affiliate in your market. In the Chicago local market this game will be on WPWR-Ch. 50 because WFLD-Ch. 32, Fox-TV’s primary channel, is carrying the Bears preseason game.
