No black cat was spotted Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, but the spirit of the famous Black Cat Game of 1969 hovered over the ballpark like a wayward drone.
The Chicago Cubs blew a five-run lead in a 9-7 loss to the New York Mets, dropping their season-high fifth straight game before a shell-shocked crowd of 35,729.
To make matters worse, rookie Cade Horton came out after three innings and 29 pitches with back tightness in what figures to be his final regular-season start before the postseason. Cubs manager Craig Counsell termed it a “precautionary” move, but any kind of health issue, minor or not, is a concern at this time of the year.
Horton was sick all week and coughing a lot, but Counsell said his only symptoms going in were “on deep breaths.”
“That’s what we feel like it probably is, and we wanted to be extra careful during the start tonight, so we stopped it,” the manager said.
Horton said he got sick last week in Cincinnati and felt the tightness in his right back, in the rib area. He said he wanted to continue pitching but agreed with the decision to end it.
Asked if he would be ready to go in the postseason, Horton replied: “Absolutely.”
If it was his last regular-season start, Horton ended with a sterling 2.67 ERA, including a major-league-leading 1.03 ERA since the All-Star break. He potentially could start Sept. 30 in Game 1 of the playoffs, which would be at Wrigley if the Cubs clinch home-field advantage with the first wild-card spot.
If the Cubs falter in the final five games and let the San Diego Padres pass them while also finishing behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, they would open the postseason on the road. Their magic number to clinch home field was four after the Padres’ 7-0 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday. The Padres moved within 1½ games of the Cubs — and hold the tiebreaker — as well as 1½ behind the Dodgers in the National League West.
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Tuesday’s Cubs loss came against a Mets team fighting for survival in the wild-card hunt. Francisco Alvarez’s two-out, two-run home run off Caleb Thielbar in the eighth gave the Mets the lead for good, and they moved a game ahead of the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks for the final NL wild-card spot.
The Cubs haven’t won since they clinched, but Nico Hoerner, who improved his average to .302 with a three-hit night, said the urgency is the same as it’s been all week.
“Clinching obviously is the first step, but playing here in front of our fans in Wrigley is no small matter,” Hoerner said. “It’s a huge deal and something that we all take very seriously. (Counsell) was very adamant about that in his clinching speech, just how important that is for the group and that’s the next thing.
“Obviously we haven’t played well since we clinched, but playing here at Wrigley — playoff games — is a really, really special thing and not an opportunity any of us want to miss.”
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The Cubs haven’t played a postseason game in front of fans at Wrigley since 2018, when they lost the singular wild-card game to the Colorado Rockies.
On Tuesday, they knocked out Mets starter David Peterson with one out in the second and held a seemingly comfortable 6-1 lead in the fifth when everything began to fall apart. With a runner on and one out, shortstop Dansby Swanson let a sharp Alvarez grounder get past him for an error, opening the door to a big inning.
Francisco Lindor’s RBI groundout made it 5-2, and after a walk, Pete Alonso singled home another run. With left-handed-hitting Brandon Nimmo up, Counsell yanked Michael Soroka for left-hander Taylor Rogers, and Nimmo grabbed hold of a sweeper and launched it into the party deck in right field, tying the score at 6.
Visions of the black cat came to the minds of Cubs fans old enough to remember the infamous game at Shea Stadium on Sept. 9, 1969, when a cat that somehow got onto the field crossed in front of Cubs third baseman Ron Santo in the on-deck circle. The Cubs lost the game and their once-imposing lead in the NL East eventually disappeared, creating a generation of Mets-hating fans in Chicago.
After the Mets took the lead in the sixth on Lindor’s two-out RBI single off Drew Pomeranz, the Cubs tied it in the bottom of the inning on Seiya Suzuki’s run-scoring single off Tyler Rogers, Taylor’s twin. The Cubs had a scoring opportunity in the seventh, but Pete Crow-Armstrong struck out with the go-ahead run on second.
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After Alvarez’s home run, Mets closer Edwin Díaz pitched two hitless innings for the save, striking out five of six batters and all three he faced in the ninth. After scoring five runs on five hits through 1 1/3 innings, the Cubs added only two runs on four hits the rest of the night, striking out 11 times.
What was the feeling afterward?
“We lost,” Counsell said. “They came back, they battled well and they got some big hits for sure. We didn’t put together a complete enough game to win.”
If Horton rebounds from his ailment, it should provide Cubs fans with some optimism heading into the postseason. His second half was dominant by any standard, and his confidence level is extremely high.
“Yeah, I feel more comfortable, but I don’t think my confidence has changed,” the rookie said of his second half. “Just the results have changed. My process has been the same, continuing to find ways to get better. Just better results.”