MILWAUKEE — There was a moment early on Monday night when the blueprint for the Cubs’ offense was on full display. Nico Hoerner slashed a pitch from Brewers lefty Aaron Ashby into right field for a single. Kyle Tucker worked a walk. And then Seiya Suzuki launched a baseball nearly to Bernie Brewer’s famous slide well beyond the left-field wall.
It was a furious sequence in the first inning of Game 2 of the National League Division Series that hushed the raucous home crowd, giving the Cubs faithful on hand their chance to break through with a collective roar. Shota Imanaga had a burst of run support and Chicago had the type of early momentum it badly needed in this intense series.
“It felt like that was kind of breaking it open for us,” Cubs left fielder Ian Happ said.
And then the Brewers put the Cubs on the brink of elimination.
The home run woes that have followed Imanaga all season long surfaced again at the wrong time, sending the North Siders to a gut-punch of a 7-3 loss at American Family Field. The Cubs lefty surrendered a pair of blasts and only lasted eight outs, wearing a stunned look as manager Craig Counsell made the walk to the mound — amid the now-customary chorus of boos — to turn to his bullpen.
Two games into this series, the Cubs’ starting pitchers — lefty Matthew Boyd and Imanaga — have combined to log only 3 1/3 innings with 10 runs (six earned) allowed between them. As good as Chicago’s relief corps has been in these playoffs, that is asking a lot of the group. And should this series go the distance, Boyd and Imanaga will have to get back to their early-season steadiness.
“With the team putting up three runs, I ruined the game,” Imanaga said via his interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “So there’s a lot of frustration within myself.”
Chicago gets to return to the comforts of Wrigley Field for Game 3 on Wednesday to push for a comeback, but the odds are stacked against the ballclub. In postseason history, there have been only 10 teams out of 90 to rally back from an 0-2 deficit in any best-of-five series. In Division Series history with the current 2-2-1 format, teams that won Games 1 and 2 at home have advanced 31 times out of 34 total, including 20 sweeps.
Cubs fans looking for a sliver of hope can use the fact that this year’s team went 50-29 during the regular season at Wrigley Field, dispatching the Padres in the Wild Card Series with the help of home-field advantage. The North Siders will hand the ball to veteran Jameson Taillon, who started the Game 3 clincher over San Diego.
“You can’t look at it as this daunting three games,” Happ said. “You have to take it as, ‘Win tomorrow. Move on. Win tomorrow. Move on.’ That’s the only thing that we can do as a group — is just win on Wednesday and go from there.”
That echoed the message delivered by Counsell.
“It’s simple. We’ve got to just win pitches. We’ve got to win moments,” Counsell said. “You’ve got to stay with your process and your routines. It’s as simple as that. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The Brewers certainly felt the impact of their fan base in the first two games in Milwaukee, where the crowds were revved up during the first playoff matchup between these division rivals. Really, one of the only moments the ballpark was forced into a stunned response was when Suzuki hammered a first-inning pitch from Ashby 111.7 mph off the bat and sent it a projected 440 feet to left-center field, per Statcast.
That is where Chicago’s offense stopped, continuing an unfortunate theme.
In the last three playoff games, the Cubs have scored six runs within the first two innings and only three runs from the third inning on. Chicago has managed 12 runs total through five postseason games and, in the process, surpassed the Brooklyn Dodgers (12 games between 1916-41) for the longest playoff streak with three or fewer runs scored (13, dating back to 2017).
“In the postseason, every team has really good pitchers,” Suzuki said via Stanberry. “The goal is to keep applying pressure on opposing pitchers. For me, looking at myself, yes, the first at-bat was good, but after that, it was almost like a one-and-done. So I feel like there’s a need to be more tenacious.”
“We, as an offense, have to find a way to put up a few more,” Happ said, “and help our pitching staff a little bit more.”
In the bottom half of the first, Imanaga began with strikeouts of Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang, but then Milwaukee’s pesky lineup went to work. William Contreras and Christian Yelich delivered consecutive singles, setting up a must-win battle with Andrew Vaughn for Imanaga. The Cubs lefty fired a full-count sweeper, which Vaughn belted out to left for a game-tying, three-run blast (his first for Milwaukee since Aug. 15).
Two innings later, Contreras launched a 1-1 fastball from Imanaga high over the left-field line, where it sailed out for a two-out solo shot that put the Cubs in a 4-3 hole. Milwaukee’s catcher admired his work for a moment at the plate before casually tossing his bat aside and making his way around the bases.
“He did get off to a good start,” Counsell said. “But the long ball and the rate he’s giving it up right now with runners on base, that’s going to be hard to overcome.”
In the fourth it was Chourio’s turn — this time against reliever Daniel Palencia. The hard-throwing righty sent a 101.4 mph heater in on an 0-2 count and the Brewers outfielder sent it out to dead center field for another three-run homer. It was the fastest pitch in a postseason game to be hit for a home run in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008).
That broke things wide open — the way the Cubs hoped Suzuki’s blast would for them in the first inning.
Imanaga is hoping to have a chance at redemption.
“Realistically, I haven’t been able to put up the results to help the team,” Imanaga said. “But, if that was to come to reality, then I want to regain the trust of everybody.”
