Jeez, I thought the Cubs were dead. These guys got torched both games in Milwaukee, but then almost managed to blow Game 3 after jumping out to a 4-1 lead in the first inning.
Game 4 started much the same way for Chicago, with a three-run homer in the first inning Ian Happonly this time they didn’t give up. Matthew Boyd For 4 2/3 scoreless innings, they threw breaking balls around Milwaukee bats, and instead of resting on their first-inning output as they did in Game 3, the Cubs put up a late-inning fence to stretch the final score to a serene 6-0. A decisive Game 5 awaits in Milwaukee.
The Brewers have a lot to offer as a team. Their egalitarian stance goes eight deep, and even gets crucial contributions from the likes of Jake Bauer. They have a bunch of relievers with crazy stuff. They are one of the better defensive teams in the National League and the best baserunning team anywhere. They are like a three-way football team; so versatile and fundamentally sound that they lull you to sleep while running 300 meters towards you.
What the Brewers don’t have is a glut of knockout starting pitching. Brandon Woodruff is injured again. Robert Gasser is still smooth from the operating room. Jacob Misiorowski And Tobias Myers stormed furiously into the rotation and then played themselves in the bullpen and off the roster, respectively.
Milwaukee’s only man with a capital G is Freddy Peraltawho this year ranked third among qualified starters in opponent batting average and eighth in strikeout percentage. In Game 1, Peralta allowed four hits and struck out nine in 5 2/3 innings. This contribution went relatively unnoticed as the Brewers, starting on a short rest, torched Boyd for six runs in the first inning.
But Peralta is the guy the Brewers should rely on for quality and at least some length. He’s the guy they want the ball with an NLCS bid on the line.
Unfortunately, Peralta spun his wheels when the flag dropped, and he paid the price. He left a curveball right down the middle Nico Hoerner and was lucky that it only ended up as a single. Then he walked Kyle Tucker without even getting close to the strike zone. Seiya Suzuki Peralta made the save by chasing an eye-level fastball, but then Peralta’s luck ran out.
Ian Happ isn’t going to reach an exit speed of 120 mph or hit the ball 450 feet. But if you leave a fastball dead center, he can strike it out.
Crushing a three-run homer in the first inning off your opponent’s ace sure feels like a knockout. But you can’t win a game in the first inning; Happ’s homer only increased Chicago’s odds of winning to 79.3%. In the seven NLDS games (including the Phillies-Dodgers series) that preceded this, the team that scored first was just 1-6, and in two of those games the losing team led 3-0 before the end of the second inning.
If the Cubs wanted to convert that Happ home run into a Game 5, they had to do two things: First, prevent the Brewers from responding immediately. And second, stretch the lead.
Boyd, who had been boat-raced in his previous start, was much improved in Game 4. He mixed five pitches during his 67-pitch outing and generated 10 whiffs on 31 swings. Four of those came against the slider, which Boyd failed to throw into the strike zone one in seven attempts.
That wasn’t a slider, obviously, but Boyd was throwing junk everywhere from his low left arm slot. Even Christian Jelich was bewildered by a sinker under his hands.
The Brewers caused quite a bit of traffic on the bases, with three walks and two hits on Boyd. They had at least one baserunner in five of the first six innings. But nothing came of it.
In Game 3, the Cubs let the Brewers hang around and watched as they gradually cut the lead to one. When Jackson Chourio doubled to take the lead from the top of the eighth, I was confident the Brewers would win.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell jealously guarded the 3-0 lead. When Boyd got into real trouble for the first time in the fifth inning, he had the left-hander face Yelich one last time. Then he brought in Daniel Palenciaa high-leverage reliever who was responsible for half of Chicago’s 44 saves in the regular season in shutting down the right-handed Chourio.
Nevertheless, the Brewers could have tied the game at that point with one swing. A 3-0 lead is not as safe as it seems.
And the Cubs continued to miss opportunities to extend the lead. A two-on-two-out situation in the second inning yielded nothing. The Cubs then loaded the bases with one out for their No. 4 and No. 5 hitters in the fifth; Suzuki struck out again on a pitch that was nowhere near the zone. Happ hit a hard line drive that could have been a bases-clearing double had it been hit 10 degrees to either side, but instead it was an easy inning-ending catch for Blake Perkins.
Matt Shaw finally broke the hoodoo in the bottom of the sixth with a Aaron Ashby curveball off his shoelaces into center field for an RBI single, but the Cubs stranded Shaw and Dansby Swansonleaving it a one-possession game.
But the Cubs kept pushing. The long-suffering Tucker led off the bottom of the seventh with his first playoff home run since Game 1 of the 2022 World Series. And the Cubs almost completely broke the dam.
With Suzuki first, Happ stepped into a hanging sweeper from Gasser and immediately launched it 100 meters at a speed of 171 km/h. He obviously got under it a bit, but it still came within about a foot of landing in the idiotic basket in front of the left-center field fence, instead of into Perkins’ glove. Happ will no doubt be happy with his three RBIs as they clinched a victory, but he came very close to driving in at least eight runs that night.
The next batter, Carson Kellyended up on the wrong end of not one but two reps in one at-bat. First, he launched a fly ball at Waveland Avenue that was repeatedly ruled to have left the park just on the wrong side of the left field foul pole. Two pitches later, Kelly almost grounded to short, but the out call on the field was upheld.
When Gasser walked Pete Crow Armstrong to put two on with two outs for Swanson, it looked like the Cubs would continue to tack – a walk for PCA is never a good sign for a pitcher – but again the Cubs stranded the runners. Don’t worry – Michael Busch scored another run with a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth inning.
By now the ratio of outs remaining to the run lead was growing small, and the feisty end of Chicago’s bullpen had things under control. After Palencia got four outs, Drew Pomeranz pitched a clean inning with two strikeouts, and Brad Keller – who had erased the threat in the eighth inning the night before – erased a walk with a double play. In the end the lead was big enough to be trusted Caleb Thielbardeparture Andrew Kittredge free to attack a decisive Game 5 on two days’ rest.
The Cubs, who looked outmatched in the first two games, now head back to I-94 for a chance to make their first NLCS appearance since 2017. Along the way there is a Woodman’s grocery store outside of Racine with the largest selection of cheese curds I have ever seen in one place at one time. The Cubs should stop there for a snack along the way. They earned it.
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