Royals 9, Cubs 1: We’ll never be Royals

And we’ll never be royals (royals)
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of luxe just ain’t for us
We crave a different kind of buzz — “Royals,” Lorde, 2013

Remember 2013? That’s when the song “Royals” by the New Zealand singer Lorde came out. She was only 17 at the time, and it became a huge international hit. At the same time, the Cubs were going through a 96-loss rebuild season. So, now every time the Cubs play the Royals, this song starts running through my head.

Look, I have got to try to make writing these game recaps fun for me, and just sitting here regurgitating the details of another depressing Cubs defeat, 9-1 to the aforementioned Royals and establishing a new franchise record, 13 consecutive losses at Wrigley Field, would be no fun at all.

So enjoy the song, it’s a kicky little pop tune and seems somehow appropriate, because right now the Chicago Cubs are about as far from baseball royalty as you could possibly imagine.

There’s not much you can say about Alec Mills’ outing — it wasn’t good, he got pounded for 11 hits in four-plus innings and threw 100 pitches. There is one play during Mills’ time on the mound I want to talk about, in fact, the last such play, Hunter Dozier sending a fly ball to right-center field with runners on second and third [VIDEO].

Rafael Ortega did a pretty good sales job on this ball to make everyone think that he caught it, and the Cubs threw the ball to second and third base and tagged the bases and if there’s a catch it’s a triple play.

Look at the video from about :40 to :45 — you can clearly see the ball hits Ortega’s leg as it goes off his glove for the second time. That means the ball’s in play.

David Ross had used up a challenge earlier in the game and it failed, so the umpires conferred about the Ortega catch and the game continued, with Dozier placed on second with a double and two runs scoring on the play. It was 7-1 at the time, but as I told Mike Bojanowski when the Royals went up 3-0 in the third, even that seemed like an insurmountable deficit.

And, of course, it was. Here is the only real Cubs highlight of the afternoon, an RBI single by Matt Duffy in the fourth inning [VIDEO].

Cubs pitchers did strike out 12 Royals in this game. So, yay?

I guess. That’s about all I’ve got on this one. Oh, our old buddy Wade Davis, who entered this game with a 6.81 ERA in 34 appearances in 2021 and since 2019 has posted an 8.49 ERA and 1.742 WHIP in 89 games, threw a 1-2-3 ninth. Here’s the final out of the game [VIDEO].

Davis didn’t look too happy about that hit, but he got three outs without anyone reaching base, and the Cubs went down meekly to defeat No. 72 of the 2021 season. They are now 3-17 in August and have been outscored 143-71 in those 20 games, the equivalent of losing all of them by an average score of about 7-3. Yikes.

The 2021 Cubs season continues. The good news is that there are only 36 games remaining. The bad news is... there are 36 games remaining. Monday, the Colorado Rockies bring their 14-45 road record to Wrigley Field. Perhaps the Cubs can even win a game, and they actually have a decent chance of doing so with Kyle Hendricks on the mound. Antonio Senzatela is scheduled to start for the Rockies. Game time is 7:05 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.

Enjoy the music. It’s a lot more fun than this game was.