Welcome to life with the Cubs, Juan Cruz, where the lineup is in hibernation and a pair of spikes qualifies as run support.
“They tell me when the wind blows out here there are a lot of high-scoring events,” manager Don Baylor said after the Cubs’ 3-1 loss to Milwaukee on Tuesday. “I don’t see that.”
What Baylor sees is a team that has spiraled to a 7-13 record since Aug. 1, a team that has scored two runs or fewer 40 times this season.
“We earned our [first] place,” Baylor said, “but we haven’t taken it and run with it. We’ll have to come out of this eventually.”
Or will they? The Cubs lost Tuesday despite a superb performance from Cruz, the 20-year-old right-hander who was making his major-league debut.
Cruz pitched six innings of three-hit ball and struck out eight batters, firing 97 m.p.h. fastballs with movement to complement a dastardly changeup.
“I love him,” Brewers manager Davey Lopes gushed. “His mannerisms are very much like one of the best pitchers in the game, Pedro.”
No, Lopes wasn’t referring to Pedro Astacio. He was referring to Pedro Martinez, another slender Dominican whom Cruz idolizes.
“He’ll get another start, that’s for sure,” Baylor said.
Cruz will need another chance to record his first big-league victory after the Cubs’ hitting sputtered against a portly right-hander named Ruben Quevedo.
That’s the same Quevedo, of course, who went 3-10 with a 7.47 ERA for the Cubs last year.
And the same Quevedo who was traded to Milwaukee three weeks ago in a four-player deal that brought reliever David Weathers to Chicago.
Weathers has put up a 6.17 ERA since the trade and gave up an insurance run in the seventh inning Tuesday when left-handed batter Mark Sweeney took him deep to the opposite field.
But that run hardly mattered. The Cubs couldn’t get past second base for the game’s final seven innings. They also loaded the bases with nobody out in the first inning and failed to score.
“I could be doing better,” Eric Young said. “We all need to do better, everybody in this clubhouse. Sammy has been very hot but he hasn’t been getting much support. We probably need to do things to generate more offense. We’re not hitting right now, and I guess the manager is searching for answers.”
Baylor’s answer Tuesday was to sit Young, who is mired in a 2-for-19 slump, in favor of Delino DeShields, who hit leadoff. DeShields went 1-for-3 with a sacrifice fly.
“I’m trying to find some guys to get on base in front of 3 and 4 and 5,” Baylor said.
