Brewers 7, Cubs 0: A tale of two games

Friday afternoon’s 7-0 Cubs loss to the Brewers began at 1:21 p.m. CT.

I mention that because the first six innings flew by, in a taut pitchers’ duel between Jose Quintana and Gio Gonzalez, marred only by a Ryan Braun home run in the fourth. Not-so-fun fact about that homer:

Anyway, the game was beginning the seventh inning at around 3 p.m. CT, which means the last three innings took just about as long as the first three.

For Brewers fans, they probably didn’t care, as their team tagged Quintana, Kyle Ryan and Allen Webster for six more runs over those three innings, but we are not Brewers fans here, and those three innings were a boring slog, punctuated by a whole bunch of walks by Cubs pitchers, a couple of wild pitches, a throwing error by Willson Contreras on a missed pickoff... need I go on?

Honestly, there isn’t a whole lot to say here. I will say that the Cubs did have a shot at scoring first in this game, after Javier Baez singled leading off the second inning and one out later, David Bote walked. Then Javy tried to steal third and was thrown out fairly easily. I agree with this:

Javy needs to pick his spots better. Sure, most of the time that aggressiveness pays off, and we all love the swim moves that sometimes will get him an extra base that otherwise wouldn’t happen. This play wasn’t one of those times. Impossible to say what would have happened in that inning if not for the caught-stealing, but maybe the Cubs score and then the whole tone of the game is different.

This game is so bereft of Cubs highlights that the only thing I can show you, video-wise, is this compilation of a first-inning double play and some Q strikeouts [VIDEO].

As you know in baseball, sometimes it’s just not your day. I’ll refer to the aphorism that every team is going to win a third of its games no matter what, and lose a third no matter what. This one was one of the latter category.

The Cubs did have a shot at getting back into the game in the seventh, down just 3-0 and with the first two runners on base. But Jason Heyward grounded into an unassisted double play, and even though Addison Russell followed with a double, pinch-hitter Daniel Descalso popped up to end the threat.

It’s just one of those games where you say, “Get ‘em tomorrow,” and that will end this recap. The Cubs and Brewers will meet again at 1:20 p.m. CT Saturday, with Cole Hamels going for the Cubs and Zach Davies for the Brewers. TV coverage Saturday will be via ABC7 Chicago.