Brewers 4, Cubs 0: Just the facts

Tyler Chatwood walked only two batters in five innings in Tuesday’s 4-0 Cubs loss to the Brewers.

Yay?

Well, yes, yay for this, at least:

That’s about the only positive takeaway I can post about this otherwise dull, drab defeat. The Cubs managed just two singles and two walks; just one Cubs runner got past first base: Ben Zobrist, in the second inning, after a walk and an infield single by Willson Contreras. The only other Cubs hit was a single by Addison Russell in the seventh.

It was just the third time in 13 starts that Chatwood had walked fewer than three. So... that’s good, right?

What wasn’t good was this [VIDEO].

The usually excellent Cubs defense failed miserably on that rundown. There were far too many throws and why on Earth were there four Cubs around second base and no one covering first?

In the end, that rundown didn’t matter, since the Brewers already had a 2-0 lead on a first-inning double by Travis Shaw, and the Cubs didn’t score any runs at all. The botched rundown eventually led to another two-run double by Shaw, and really, all of us could have turned off the TV right then and not missed anything useful done by the Cubs.

The only other positive thing from this game was some more good relief work. Luke Farrell threw two shutout innings, striking out four, and Anthony Bass finished up with a scorless frame. That saved the rest of the bullpen, a useful thing to do in a game this bad. Farrell, incidentally, now has 24 strikeouts in 15⅓ innings, a K rate of 14.1. Among Cubs pitchers this year, only Carl Edwards Jr. (14.4) has a better strikeout rate. And Farrell’s walk rate of 2.3 is also excellent. Looks like the Cubs have made another good waiver claim.

One last note about Tuesday’s game: Both of the Cubs hits were singles. That ended a run of 95 straight Cubs regular-season games with at least one extra-base hit, which is a franchise record dating back to at least 1908 (as far as baseball-reference.com’s database goes, for now).

So if you’re thinking this is about the shortest game recap you’ve seen here, you’re probably right. There simply isn’t anything more to say about this loss, other than tip your cap to Chase Anderson and two Brewers relievers, who simply shut down Cubs hitters.

One of the best things about baseball is that when your team has a defeat like this, you don’t have to think about it for very long, because generally there’s another game the next day. In this case, there’s another game this afternoon, so hopefully the Cubs can push this one aside and win the series. Game time Wednesday is 1:10 p.m. CT and TV coverage is on WGN. Mike Montgomery will start for the Cubs and Jhoulys Chacin goes for the Brewers. Today’s game preview will post at 11:30 a.m. CT.