MILWAUKEE — Kevin Gausman’s brief Chicago Cubs tenure has been defined by two sides of the right-hander.
At times, Gausman has shown why the Cubs acquired him at the trade deadline to shore up the rotation. Other days, like Wednesday night at American Family Field, he has struggled to give them a competitive start.
The Milwaukee Brewers scored seven runs (six earned) off Gausman, who put the Cubs in an early six-run deficit after two innings. Although they showed fight with a five-run ninth that brought the tying run to the plate, the Cubs lost 8-6 to get swept by the Brewers.
“We’re not playing good enough,” manager Craig Counsell said. “There’s enough things we’re not doing in all areas. … We had a defensive mistake that cost us a run today. Obviously we had a couple bullpen issues.
“We’ve got to do a little bit more collectively to win games.”
In three of his seven starts with the Cubs, Gausman has surrendered five or more earned runs, while in three other outings the veteran posted a quality start.
Christian Yelich delivered the big blow in the first with a three-run home run off a fastball over the middle of the plate. Jackson Chourio (solo) and William Contreras (two-run) went deep in the second off splitters.
“I just need to pitch better,” Gausman said. “It comes back to execution. I can’t throw lazy (splitters) in the zone. Those are always going to get beat.
“So just need to be better, and the games where I pitched good, I really made good pitches. When I haven’t, I just haven’t. Obviously big game. I would have loved to take a game from these guys, but I just didn’t pitch very well.”
The Cubs (81-66), riding a four-game losing streak, head into Thursday’s day off looking to regroup. Here are three takeaways from the sweep.
1. Their hold on a playoff spot is starting to become tenuous.
Less than a month ago, the Cubs’ postseason positioning was a question of when, not if, they would clinch a playoff berth.
On Aug. 12, the day before the Philadelphia Phillies started their nine-game winning streak, the Cubs were 7½ games up on the last playoff spot and had a 6½-game lead on the San Diego Padres for the National League’s first wild-card position. They had finished an 8-1 stretch.
Fast forward to Wednesday and the completion of the sweep by the Brewers: The Cubs head into Thursday’s day off sitting in the second wild-card spot, 1½ games behind the Phillies and just 2½ games up on the Padres, now in the last spot. The Cubs, who have lost 16 of their last 26, hold the season tiebreaker over the Phillies, Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, who are three games behind the Cubs.
“Look, our job is to win games, that’s what we can control,” Counsell said. “That’s what we can do. It doesn’t affect any decisions. The decisions are happening during the game here. What’s going on around the league doesn’t help us. Do we know the standings? I know the standings.”
With 15 games left in the regular season and two of their five remaining series against teams currently in playoff position, the Cubs can’t afford to let this tough stretch derail their otherwise steady performance the first five months.
“Obviously not the series we wanted to have here,” Ian Happ said. “We’ve put ourselves in a position where we kind of control our own destiny. Our goal is to play playoff baseball no matter how that shakes out, give ourselves an opportunity, and so we have a little over two weeks to make that push and finish strong.”
2. The bullpen needs to get locked back in quickly.
Lately it hasn’t seemed to matter whom Counsell goes to in leverage moments.
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Veteran right-hander Jacob Webb has blown three games since his two-month scoreless streak ended in Seattle in late August. Webb’s scuffling, Daniel Palencia’s diminished velocity and overall struggles since coming off the injured list and Ryan Zeferjahn’s inconsistency have put the Cubs in a tough spot. The bullpen owns a 5.08 ERA since Aug. 21, tied for 24th in the majors, and a 30th-ranked minus-0.7 fWAR in that span.
There’s an added sense of urgency with these issues happening as mid-September approaches, versus navigating a feeling-out process early in the season of how best to deploy the relievers.
“Every day is essentially the same, and we’ve been in a situation this year where we haven’t had set roles for the majority of the year,” Counsell said. “Jacob certainly earned and deserved a shot at what he was doing. He pitched wonderfully, and he was essentially taking the biggest outs of the game for the better part of four months for this bullpen. And he did a wonderful job at it.
“But there has been no, ‘Hey, it’s the seventh inning, you know what’s coming out of the pen,’ for the whole year, so nothing changes from that perspective.”
Whether it was pushing starter Matthew Boyd deeper into the eighth Monday — the Cubs haven’t had a starter record an out in the eighth this season — or going to the bullpen to cover more innings Tuesday as David Peterson navigated constant traffic in the first five innings, both paths ultimately ended in a loss when the bullpen couldn’t close out the games.
3. Home runs continue to hurt the pitching staff.
The Cubs are trending toward an unwanted statistical distinction.
While the best offense in the big leagues leads the majors with 203 home runs, the pitching staff owns the dubious mark of having allowed the most home runs (221). Gausman added to the Cubs total with his three home runs allowed Wednesday.
Those long-ball struggles for Cubs pitchers have been on the front office’s mind lately, particularly with the late leads they’ve given up.
“We’ve hit a ton of homers recently, we’ve given up a lot of homers — obviously that’s something we have to work on is giving up fewer homers,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said last week. “The home-run ball has been a challenge for us, and it’s something that not only this year but going forward we have to really think through.”
It’s a frustrating development, especially with a rotation that now features sinkerballers Clay Holmes and Peterson plus Gausman, whose splitter-fastball combination can lead to plenty of groundouts. The long ball also takes away the opportunity for the Cubs’ elite defense to shine.
“We’re confident in this group,” Gausman said. “We can’t really have time to sulk.”