Braves 5, Cubs 2: Déjà vu all over again

You might recall that the recap of Wednesday’s 7-0 loss to the Brewers was headlined “Déjà vu.” That’s because it felt just like so many other Cubs losses this year.

The Cubs’ 5-2 loss to the Braves on a sunny but chilly Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field was basically same old, same old, thus I decided on the headline you see here, which was at one time credited to Hall of Famer Yogi Berra as one of his aphorisms.

You’re tired of reading the same old game recap, I’m sure, and I can tell you I am good and sick of writing them.

So I decided I’d try something different for this one. I found this 2019 USA Today article containing what purports to be Yogi’s 50 greatest quotes.

I thought I’d take several of them and relate them to what happened in this game. And trust me, quite a few were quite appropriate.

You can observe a lot by just watching.

Yes, you can, and I sure did, along with a few thousand other observers who slogged through a four-hour, two-minute game that featured 14 walks and 186 pitches thrown by six Cubs pitchers. (The Braves weren’t much better. It took 181 Braves pitches to win the game, including 34 in a ninth inning where the Cubs loaded the bases on walks.)

It ain’t over till it’s over.

This one was over early. Once the Cubs went down 3-1 in the fourth, it felt over. The deficit was only two runs, but it might as well have been 200. Incidentally, what’s up with Zach Davies not being able to get third outs? He breezed through two innings, with just a walk in each, then retired the first two hitters in both the third and fourth but somehow couldn’t get that third out, and wound up throwing a ghastly total of 90 pitches in just four frames.

It’s like déjà vu all over again.

Voilà, the headline for this recap.

Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.

I’m not sure which half or 90 percent the Cubs are using right now, but neither one is working. At the top of this post, Jason Heyward is shown after being called out on strikes in the eighth inning, on pitch 8 in this sequence:

Borderline, I grant you, but after that at-bat? You have to at least foul that pitch off.

We made too many wrong mistakes.

Yes, starting with this lineup, which FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE DAVID ROSS, WILL YOU JUST SHAKE UP THE LINEUP ALREADY!!?!?!?!?!

I mean, granted, lineup construction is overrated but why send the same guys out there in the same order over and over and over when you’re not scoring runs that way?

You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.

Yogi is wise.

Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.

This applies to the entire roster of the Chicago National League Ball Club, who, for the sixth time this season in 13 total games, failed to score more than two runs.

I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.

They’re trying, I’m sure. Sometimes they’re very trying.

(I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your server.)

It gets late early out here.

Especially when you are playing a four-hour, two-minute nine-inning game.

In baseball, you don’t know nothing.

I would guess that most MLB managers have said this at one time or another. If David Ross hasn’t said it, I’m sure he’s been thinking it most of this season.

You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go.

Willson Contreras must have “got the timing” on this one [VIDEO].

That ball, as even Yogi might have said, was crushed!

One last quote, and for this one I transition from Yogi to the late Royals reliever Dan Quisenberry:

“I have seen the future and it is much like the present, only longer.”

And this is going to be a really, really, REALLY long season if these Chicago Cubs players can’t figure out how to hit.

Hope you enjoyed this. It certainly was more fun than writing a regular recap. Perhaps tomorrow, part of that future, will be better.

Trevor Williams will start for the Cubs Saturday at Wrigley Field against Huascar Ynoa for the Braves. Game time is again 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.