A tight National League wild-card race has created plenty of what-ifs surrounding missed opportunities for the Chicago Cubs.
The Cubs squandered a three-run lead they took into the sixth inning Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves, hurt by three two-run home runs in a 6-3 loss. They still hold a half-game lead for the first wild-card spot after the Philadelphia Phillies also lost Tuesday. The San Diego Padres, sitting in the third wild-card position, also failed to gain ground when their eight-game winning streak was snapped.
The Cubs managed just five hits and didn’t put a runner in scoring position after the fourth inning. They had only one baserunner (a single) in the final five innings.
“This time of year everything is obviously magnified and there’s a lot of pressure,” said starter Kevin Gausman, who served up a two-run homer by Ronald Acuña Jr. in the sixth for the only runs he allowed in 5 2/3 innings.
“You can’t forget what got you here, and I haven’t been around this team that long, but it’s a super loose team so we just keep that mentality of not letting these games that mean a lot mean too much. You have to find a way to go into a game and still have fun out there. … Find a way to not let that pressure get to you.”
As much as the offense was limited by starter Martín Pérez and the Braves bullpen, the Cubs haven’t been getting enough from their relievers.
“We’ve got to get guys pitching well and we’ve got to have … multiple guys we can count on,” manager Craig Counsell said. “We’re not going to survive if we don’t.”
Photos: Atlanta Braves 7, Chicago Cubs 6
The Cubs enter Wednesday with 10 regular-season games left to determine their postseason future. If they’re going to hold on to a playoff spot and keep the Phillies, Padres or Arizona Diamondbacks from overtaking the top wild-card position, they need these three players to step up.
1. RHP Daniel Palencia
The season hasn’t gone the way Palencia and the Cubs anticipated.
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Two injuries — a flexor strain that sidelined him for two months being the most significant — have limited the right-hander to 29 games and 25 1/3 innings after he posted a 2.91 ERA and 22 saves last year. The Cubs need the 26-year-old to lock in and become closer to the version Counsell used in a key fireman role during the 2025 postseason.
Perhaps Tuesday marked another small step in the right direction.
Palencia retired the only batter he faced, entering the sixth with a runner on first as the Cubs held a one-run lead. He needed just two pitches to retire Mauricio Dubón on a flyout.
It was Palencia’s fifth straight appearance without allowing an earned run, though there are a couple of underlying concerns. Most notably, he hasn’t been generating many swinging strikes even in his recent successful appearances. In his last five games, he recorded six whiffs in 68 pitches.
His velocity continues to be down, too, topping out Tuesday at 98.3 mph on the two fastballs he threw. He averaged 99.6 on the pitch last season and would hit triple digits. At this point in the season, this might just be who Palencia is, but the Cubs must hope his confidence, and velocity, continue to build.
2. RHP Jacob Webb
For two consecutive months, Webb was nearly untouchable.
Riding a streak of 24 scoreless appearances into the Cubs’ West Coast trip in late August, Webb has endured nightmarish outings since then. He surrendered another go-ahead home run Tuesday, a two-run shot by Ozzie Albies off a changeup that put the Braves ahead 4-3 in the seventh.
In eight appearances dating to the end of his scoreless streak Aug. 22, Webb has allowed runs in five of those outings, including four home runs — all of which blew a Cubs lead.
“The walk to lead off the inning is the thing I look back on,” Counsell said. “It’s a four-pitch walk, not something that (Webb) does, and that’s what gets you in trouble and makes the home run hurt.”
When the Cubs signed Webb in the offseason, he was projected as a sixth- and seventh-inning arm. Injuries forced him to take on a bigger role in June, and the veteran’s sizzling stretch — zero runs and 13 hits in 24 2/3 innings from June 24 to Aug. 21 — helped stabilize a banged-up pitching staff. They need him to recapture some of that consistency in the final days of the regular season as the most experienced high-leverage right-hander in the bullpen.
Part of that comes down to execution. Webb’s slider, which he started throwing this year to replace his sweeper, isn’t used often (8.8%, nearly all to right-handed hitters) but has given up damage. He primarily relied on his changeup and four-seam fastball Tuesday; he has been tagged for four home runs on his changeup this season.
3. RHP Edward Cabrera
Cabrera hadn’t entered a big-league game out of the bullpen since 2023 when he was summoned with two outs in the seventh Tuesday. And even those two previous relief experiences were bulk four-plus-inning outings for the Miami Marlins as he returned from injury.
Cabrera saw an uptick in velocity Tuesday across all five of his pitches, including his fastball, which hit 99.8 mph and averaged 98.4, compared with 96.2 in his 15 starts this year.
“It was exciting for me to get out there again,” Cabrera said through an interpreter.
With the tying run at second when he entered, Cabrera recovered from a 3-0 count to Acuña to force an inning-ending groundout. Counsell stuck with him through the eighth and ninth, and Cabrera navigated highs (three strikeouts) and lows — none bigger than Drake Baldwin’s two-run homer on a poorly located 0-2 fastball. It turned a one-run Cubs deficit into a 6-3 Braves advantage.
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“Yeah, you can definitely feel more (pressure) in the situation that we were in,” Cabrera said. “They were only up by one run, so whenever you’re in situations like that, those errors are magnified.”
The long ball was the MLB-leading 227th home run the Cubs have allowed this year. Counsell thought Cabrera otherwise had a good outing.
“The home runs change games,” Counsell said. “We’re giving up too many, there’s no question about it. Some of it has been weather-related. Tonight was not.”
With Webb faltering again, Palencia still trying to recapture his old form and Ryan Zeferjahn showing flashes of the high upside the Cubs traded for, the Cubs need Cabrera to settle into his relief role to provide them a viable hard-throwing right-handed option.