DENVER — Maybe the combination of facing the big leagues’ worst pitching staff at hitter-friendly Coors Field will help cure a stagnant, run-starved Chicago Cubs offense.
Tuesday night’s performance certainly failed to deliver an inspiring performance or suggest a turnaround is on the horizon.
The Cubs have two more cracks to build some sort of momentum after another underwhelming loss, this time dropping their series opener 7-3 against the Colorado Rockies. Right-hander Colin Rea immediately put them in a big hole, surrendering five runs in the first two innings. He ultimately allowed seven runs on nine hits, including two home runs, walked three and hit one batter in 4 2/3 innings.
“We just didn’t do enough,” manager Craig Counsell said. “I mean, you’re behind, but we just didn’t do enough tonight. Again, there were some balls well-hit with men on base that we didn’t catch any breaks on, but that’s going to happen and you’ve got to make your own breaks. And we just didn’t get the big hit, and then some innings are really quiet.”
Rea generated just five whiffs in 79 pitches, including only two in the 25 swings the Rockies took against his four-seam fastball.
“We started the game down in the zone, like yank breaking balls or heaters down, so there’s not a ton of swing-and-miss with those pitches,” Rea said. “I was falling behind a lot, and then I thought the last inning and a half was a lot better. We changed it up a little bit, but overall just a poor effort.”
The Cubs (34-33) have scored three or fewer runs in four straight games, their second-longest streak this season (five twice, the last May 18-23). They recorded their fewest runs at Coors Field since Sept. 13, 2023 (also three), and their fewest extra-base hits — a Dansby Swanson double and Michael Busch’s solo home run — since tallying one at Coors on Aug. 4, 2021.
The Cubs went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left eight on base.
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“I feel like we’re having really good at-bats, and I think getting guys on, there’s a blessing and a curse to leaving guys on,” Busch said. “You can keep getting them on, keep getting them on. You just put pressure on the other team, and part of the game is sometimes you come up big and sometimes you come up short. The willingness to just keep going and trying, we know the type of group that we have and the hitters that we have, so there’s a ton of confidence to everybody who steps in that box to get the job done.
“Everybody’s a little frustrated. Everybody would like to be doing a little more for us, but at the same time, I think just trusting that putting as much pressure as we can on the other team, each and every inning, is important. But, yeah, I mean, it’s been pretty frustrating.”
Rockies right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano gave them chances to put up runs, but the Cubs couldn’t take advantage of Sugano’s or the bullpen’s mistakes. The Cubs fouled off 14 offerings that Rockies pitchers left over the middle of the zone, 10 of them fastballs.
“Sometimes that’s the game,” Counsell said. “You know, we don’t talk about the pitch that we foul off. But that’s the game is that’s the pitch you get to hit and you miss it, and the pitcher ultimately is not going to make a lot of mistakes. That’s offense and that’s hitting, and we certainly have to do a better job with it.”
Cubs hitters remain committed to trusting the process. It’s all they can do amid such a frustrating stretch in which few are producing as they should.
That’s not comforting for a fanbase that has watched the Cubs squander a stellar start to the season that featured a 20-3 stretch. The players have been challenged mentally by the last month, and they have only themselves to get out of it.
“Look, you start over tomorrow with it, with a new game and a new chance to play well,” Counsell said. “There’s a lot of season in front of us and a lot of good things can be in front of us, and that’s still how you have to show up every day and that’s still what I believe.”