Jameson Taillon was back on the Wrigley Field mound in a must-win situation for the Chicago Cubs.
“I kind of enjoy it, honestly,” the right-hander said. “I’d rather not be in that situation, but I feel my whole career I’ve responded well to situations where I feel like the team needs me, whether it be in June when we’re playing 15 games in a row and I feel the bullpen needs help or put a stop to a skid or whatever.
“I’ve always enjoyed that. I just take pride in that.”
Taillon allowed two runs on five hits with three strikeouts and one walk in four innings on Wednesday, helping the Cubs in a 4-3 victory against the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 3 of the National League Division Series. The Cubs kept their season alive with the win. They trail 2-1 in the best-of-five series, with Game 4 on Thursday.
Taillon followed up four scoreless innings in Game 3 of the wild-card series against the San Diego Padres with another solid outing.
He limited the Brewers to one run in the first after Milwaukee loaded the bases with one out. And in the fourth, the Brewers strung together three singles with one out to score a run. With runners on the corners, the Cubs were able to successfully defend a bunt, tagging Caleb Durbin out between third and home. A groundout followed.
“I thought (Taillon) really escaped two innings essentially, the first and the fourth, and he had to make big pitches in both innings,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “That’s why you want (Taillon) out there. I said before it’s the calm in the storm, and nothing fazed him, and he made a couple really — both times made some good pitches, in the first and the fourth, to limit the damage.
“That’s what being a good pitcher is about. A run scores, and you don’t get flustered. You don’t change anything. You just keep making pitches. For (Taillon) to just put up single runs in those innings I think was really important, especially with how the game unfolded.”
Five Cubs relievers combined to allow one run and two hits over the final five innings in the victory.
Here are two more notes from Game 3.
Why wasn’t the infield-fly rule applied during a first-inning popup?
Brewers catcher William Contreras hit a high infield popup with runners on first and second and one out during the first inning.
Cubs first baseman Michael Busch immediately indicated that he had lost sight of the ball in the sun. Catcher Carson Kelly and second baseman Nico Hoerner attempted to make a play, but the ball fell on the grass between home plate and first base.
Kelly picked up the ball, but didn’t have anywhere to make a throw as the two Brewers runners raced to second and third while Contreras sprinted safely to first.
Why wasn’t the infield fly rule — generally applied on popups with runners on first and second or the bases loaded and fewer than two outs — not called?
“The basic thing that we look for is ordinary effort,” umpire supervisor Larry Young told a pool reporter. “That’s in the rule book. We don’t make that determination until the ball has reached its apex — the height — and then starts to come down.
“When the ball went up, initially everybody thought it was going to be ordinary effort, even the batter (Contreras). He wasn’t too sure if he was going to run, then he started to run. When it reached the height, the umpires determined that the first baseman (Busch) wasn’t going to make a play on it, the middle infielder (Hoerner) raced over and he wasn’t going to make a play on it, so ordinary effort went out the window at that point.”
Column: Chicago Cubs win a wild one, staving off elimination in Game 3 at a raucous Wrigley Field
Young, who umpired from 1985-2007, was on site at Wrigley Field. He has been an umpire supervisor since 2008.
“It’s a lot of factors,” Young said. “It could be wind, it could be the sun, could be just misjudging it, but we don’t make that determination until it reaches the apex. That’s why we wait.”
Counsell checked with the umpires after the completion of the sequence.
“The umps got it right,” Counsell said. “You have to have a player that’s going to catch it to call infield fly, and we never had a player really close to catching it. Right call. I was hoping they made the wrong call. They did not.”
A sacrifice fly followed, but the Cubs limited the damage to just the one run. The Cubs wasted little time responding in the bottom of the first, getting a leadoff home run by Busch as part of a four-run inning.
Busch’s defense came through later in the game
Brewers manager Pat Murphy credited Busch’s defense in denying the Brewers a run on the bunt play in the fourth.
The Brewers had runners on the corners with one out when Brandon Lockridge laid down the bunt on the first pitch.
“Right-handed guy on the mound (Taillon), right-handed hitter, so the third baseman was close to the base, so you don’t get as big a lead,” Murphy said. “I was confident with Lockridge’s bunting ability, which he did all week in the practice week, and he’s really good at it. I’m sure he could get that bunt down.”
Busch fielded the ball cleanly and threw to the plate. Durbin got caught in a rundown and was eventually tagged out by Busch, who had raced to cover home.
“Busch made a great play,” Murphy said. “But I wish Caleb would have kept going. I think if he would have just accelerated and believed and dove in there, it would have taken a great throw. And certainly it’s going to be close enough, he’s going to be safe at first. Now we’ve got something going.”
Instead, Taillon got Joey Ortiz to ground out to third baseman Matt Shaw to keep the momentum in the Cubs’ favor on the way to the win.