Padres 13, Cubs 7: Home Runs Galore!

Hey, look! The Cubs equaled a season high with seven runs, and set a season high with four home runs. That's good, right!

Well, it would have been good if the Cubs hadn't allowed the Padres their season high, 13 runs (most they had scored in a game in almost two years), and three home runs; the result was a 13-7 loss, the Cubs' worst of the year, which ended the team's streak of no-blowout games at 25. That's the third-longest such streak from the beginning of a season in major-league history.

Small consolation, I suppose. But it's all we've got.

Tuesday night was summerlike at Wrigley Field, with the temperature at game-time 81 degrees and a strong southwest breeze. Some of the seven home runs needed help; others didn't. There were a number of varieties of dinger; David DeJesus' blast leading off the bottom of the seventh, sent the umpires to their dugout tunnel for a review (the ball hit the LED board in right field, which is above the basket. Any ball hitting that board is a home run). One made the street, the Padres' Nick Hundley's shot that sailed right by the TV-camera housing in right-center field in the eighth. That three-run shot completed the Padres' scoring, but the Cubs weren't done. Cody Ransom led off the ninth inning with a home run. By this time, almost the entire crowd had left, presumably to watch the Blackhawks game. Maybe 1,000 people remained to see that.

Carlos Quentin's sixth-inning home run was off Kameron Loe. Loe has thrown 13 innings this year, combined between the Mariners and Cubs. He has allowed nine home runs. Only two pitchers in the major leagues this year -- Brett Myers and Marco Estrada -- have allowed more (10 each), and each of those pitchers has thrown far more innings than Loe (21⅓ for Myers, 35⅓ for Estrada). The next relief pitcher on the home-runs-allowed list is John Axford, who's given up five. This should make the decision on who to let go when Kyuji Fujikawa returns (likely early next week) easy.

At least there was some action Tuesday night. That probably wasn't what Edwin Jackson was thinking, though, as he left the mound to loud boos with two out in the fifth, an inning in which he allowed six hits, including Yonder Alonso's home run, and a walk. Let's just say Tuesday night wasn't Cubs pitching's finest hour. In the photo at the top of this recap, Edwin Jackson is staring at the ball as if he has no idea what it actually is, or perhaps thinking, "Who's going to hit the next one?" You are welcome to provide your own caption to this photo in the comments.

That's about all I've got for this one. A number of drunk loudmouths in the section just next to ours spent an inning attempting to start the wave; I'm happy to report that they failed, miserably.

Oh, wait. One more thing. People here were down on Brent Lillibridge when he started the season so poorly, and he was demoted to Iowa. How long until people turn on Scott Hairston? He's 3-for-31. Bizarrely, two of those three hits are home runs, giving him a SLG of .323 with a BA of .097. His OPS is .440 with an OPS+ of 16.

The Cubs still do have a chance to take three out of four in this series. They complete April with a 10-16 record, which is bad. But it's better than their mark last April, 8-15. Small consolation, I know. It's supposed to be windy and warm again tonight when Scott Feldman faces ex-Cub Andrew Cashner. Perhaps there will be more entertaining home runs.