The Cubs battled back Monday night after Shōta Imanaga was blown up for seven runs in five innings and it was a valiant effort against Cleveland’s bullpen, but then the pathetic offense reared its ugly head that led to the team’s first sweep of the year. The Cubs faced back-to-back veteran pitchers and on paper this was a golden opportunity to take a series against the best team in baseball. Or hey, at least win one game, right?
Instead, the Cubs offense managed to score a combined two runs off Matthew Boyd and Alex Cobb on back-to-back nights erasing the three games they had made up in the Wild Card race this past weekend. A pair of sac-flies were the only runs the Cubs were able to manufacture against two guys that had combined for 4.2 innings all season.
That’s the annoying part. Yeah, the Guardians have been unbelievable this season and now have the best record in baseball. Getting swept by Cleveland on the road isn’t some atrocity committed by the Cubs. However, it’s annoying as hell watching Boyd and Cobb mow down the lineup in consecutive games without much resistance.
Boyd was coming back from Tommy John surgery and had not pitched since last June, while Cobb had hip surgery last offseason and then a shoulder injury kept him out this season until last week. Boyd only needed 80 pitches to get through 5.1 innings, in which the lefty only allowed three hits, while striking out six and walking none.
Meanwhile, Cobb also only gave up three hits, walked two and cruised through 5.2 innings on 80 pitches Wednesday night as the Cubs offense put up no fight at all. Two runs in 11 innings against Boyd and Cobb? So bad.
One last thing. Fuck these umpires. There’s nothing that pisses fans off more than watching their team struggle on offense and then on top of it you have awful calls behind the plate all game long. This series in Cleveland was a complete shit show from the home plate umpires.
Monday night still pisses me off. The Cubs are up 3-0 in the fourth inning and Imanaga strikes out Josh Naylor with a perfect pitch at the knees that ends the inning with runners stranded at first and second. But no, instead Naylor gets bailed out and three pitches later he hits an RBI-single that gets followed by a three-run homer.
That game is 100% different if the home plate umpire wasn’t blind. That’s the Cubs leading 3-0 to begin the fifth inning instead of trailing 4-3. Horseshit and MLB doesn’t do anything to fix this.
