Brewers 4, Cubs 2: Lather, rinse, repeat

I got tired of using “Groundhog Day” as a headline, but this one means pretty much the same thing.

Same old, same old, once again.

• A Cubs starting pitcher throws reasonably well
• The Cubs can’t get any baserunners or bring them home

Two differences in the Cubs’ 4-2 loss to the Brewers Friday night:

• The bullpen threw two shutout innings. That makes two days in a row with no runs from the pen!
• Cody Bellinger TOOTBLAN’d the team out of an inning

Well. That’s a lot of fun, so let’s begin at the beginning. Jameson Taillon matched zeroes with Colin Rea over the first three innings and then the Cubs got on the board first. Seiya Suzuki smashed his 10th homer of the year with one out in the fourth [VIDEO].

Ian Happ followed that with a double and Christopher Morel was hit by a pitch.

Dansby Swanson’s single made it 2-0 Cubs [VIDEO].

At this point there are still runners on first and second with one out, a chance for more runs, but Pete Crow-Armstrong hit into a double play to end the inning.

And then the Brewers doubled up on the Cubs runs in the top of the fourth. The Cubs nearly got out of the inning, too, with no runs scoring. After a walk and force play, Willy Adames flied to right — two out, runner on first. Taillon ran the count to 1-2 on Sal Frelick, but then Frelick reached on catcher’s interference.

You know, you just KNOW bad things are going to follow. Rhys Hoskins reached on an infield hit that went off Taillon, loading the bases, and Jackson Chourio smashed a grand slam.

A note about Chourio’s slam from BCB’s JohnW53;

The grand slam off Taillon was just the second surrendered by the Cubs this season. The first was nine days ago, by Jorge Soler of the Giants at Wrigley Field. The Cubs gave up four last year, one in 2022 and 10 in 2021.

Three of the slams last year and this one came off Taillon.

Also, this:

You know, you just KNOW this game is over right there, even though there are five innings remaining. The Cubs went down 1-2-3 in the fifth, then Bellinger reached on an error to lead off the sixth. After Suzuki was called out on strikes, this happened [VIDEO].

We all made fun of the White Sox’ Paul DeJong when he did this a few weeks ago — took off from first with one out and never stopped — but that one ended a game. This one just ended an inning. But seriously, how does this happen with major league players? Between the player and the first-base coach, how do you not know how many outs there are?

Sigh. Do the Cubs score any more runs in that inning if that doesn’t happen, with Bellinger on first and two out? Probably not, but it still can’t happen in a MLB game.

The Cubs loaded the bases with two out in the seventh on a walk by Swanson and singles by Miles Mastrobuoni and Nico Hoerner. Patrick Wisdom was sent up to bat for Michael Busch, but he flied out to end the inning [VIDEO].

Jorge Lopez, just called up from Triple-A Iowa, threw a scoreless seventh, allowing one hit. So that’s good. But three Cubs struck out in the eighth. Colten Brewer threw a scoreless eighth — where was that the other day in San Francisco?

Former Cub Trevor Megill, now the Brewers closer, set down the Cubs 1-2-3 in the ninth and that, as they say, was that.

Sigh, yet again. I can stand losing — lord knows I’ve seen enough of that from the Cubs in my lifetime — but I am just getting so tired of seeing the same game over and over and over and over. Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].

Perhaps today will be different.

Justin Steele will start for the Cubs Saturday afternoon. Tobias Myers goes for Milwaukee. Game time is 3:10 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network (and also on FS1, no blackouts).