SAN DIEGO — The Chicago Cubs hadn’t experienced many early-season moments when their mistakes cost them a game.
Then Monday’s series-opening 10-4 loss at Petco Park happened.
The Cubs carried a two-run lead into the sixth inning against the San Diego Padres, owners of the best record in baseball, when everything started to unravel after an uncaught fly ball.
Padres slugger Manny Machado’s 11-pitch, one-out walk prompted Cubs manager Craig Counsell to bring in right-hander Brad Keller for starter Jameson Taillon, and chaos soon followed.
Keller got designated hitter Gavin Sheets to hit what should have been a routine fly ball to shallow left field for the second out of the sixth. However, lack of communication between left fielder Ian Happ and shortstop Dansby Swanson resulted in the ball dropping for a single to put runners on first and second.
Keller let Xander Bogaerts get away on a walk after going ahead 1-2 in the count, and consecutive singles — one hit so softly that Keller couldn’t attempt to make a play on it — tied the game.
“Brad threw the ball very well and we missed an out there, then they got some fortunes on their side, some luck on their side and that hurt us,” Counsell said. “And then from there on, we didn’t throw the ball great.”
Sheets’ fly ball that fell for a single had a 95% catch probability.
“A high pop-up, should’ve been caught,” Happ said. “I was playing more straight up, not as much toward the line, but it’s a play where I’m looking for the other two guys (Swanson and third baseman Matt Shaw) and I should’ve put my head down and gone and got it.
“A good team like that, make a couple mistakes and they’re going to capitalize on it. So come back tomorrow and play a better baseball game.”
The Cubs defense has been pretty crisp this season, coming into the game with the fourth-highest fielding percentage (.991) and the most putouts (477) in the majors. But the Padres are too tough — especially at home, where they are undefeated — to get that many opportunities and not cause miscues to backfire on the Cubs.
The shaky moments went beyond that play in the sixth. There were too many sequences when the Cubs were just slightly off.
Shaw committed an error to begin the fifth that Taillon successfully navigated around. Swanson got his glove on Jason Heyward’s game-tying single in the sixth but couldn’t corral it.
First baseman Michael Busch deflected a ball hit by Luis Arráez, resulting in a double to put two in scoring position to open the seventh. Reliever Nate Pearson intentionally walked Machado to load the bases, then uncorked a wild pitch to bring home the go-ahead run.
Sheets followed with a two-run single, and Pearson’s ineffective night ended after a walk.
The Cubs came very close to another fly ball dropping between fielders with runners on second and third in the seventh, this time in right-center with Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker. Fortunately for the Cubs, Tucker noticed Crow-Armstrong had stopped pursuing the ball and adjusted to snag it.
The Padres tacked on four runs in the eighth, including back-to-back homers by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Arráez.
Given the Cubs’ performance the last three weeks, Monday’s game felt like an outlier rather than a harbinger of what’s to come, though it will be on them to make sure their series-opening performance doesn’t spiral into a downward trend.
“I think we have a really competitive team,” Happ said. “We’ve played complete baseball for the most part. You’re going to have days like today, but really impressive what we’ve done. Bounced back in the Dodgers series, come back after that first game and string two really good ones together. We know what the group’s capable of and you’ve seen that.”
The Cubs got to Padres ace Dylan Cease in the fourth, sparked by Busch’s two-run homer for his third straight game with a long ball. Crow-Armstrong’s RBI double three batters later was part of four extra-base hits the Cubs tallied off Cease.
Taillon had been a little under the weather the last few days and figured the Cubs wouldn’t push him too much. He felt a bit fatigued throughout the night but was grateful to get into the sixth. He finished with two runs and three hits allowed in 5 1/3 innings while walking one and striking out four on 89 pitches.
“That sixth inning starts with a walk and then just some weird baseball stuff happened, and then from there, it snowballed a bit,” Taillon said. “But that can happen and that’s baseball, so move on and hope we can come back and get a series win in the next two days.”
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