They didn’t do much the rest of the night, either, as a parade of Milwaukee Brewers relievers silenced a lineup that relied too much on the home run.
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“We just didn’t do much,” manager Craig Counsell said after a 3-1 loss to Milwaukee in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the NLDS. “We had six baserunners. You’re going to have to hit home runs for runs to score in scenarios like that. They pitched really well. I mean, they pitched super well and we didn’t.”
Chicago was attempting to become the 11th team to erase a 2-0 deficit and win a best-of-five playoff series, a feat last accomplished by the New York Yankees against Cleveland in their 2017 ALDS. The Cubs forced Game 5 by hitting Milwaukee’s starting pitching, as they scored 11 runs in the first inning in the first four games of the series.
Milwaukee responded by making All-Star closer Trevor Megill work as a starter on Saturday. Megill retired the team in order in the first inning, preventing the Cubs from building on the early momentum that had sparked their two home wins at Wrigley Field.
After William Contreras homered off Drew Pomerantz in the bottom of the first, Chicago tied the game when Seiya Suzuki greeted Jacob Misiorowski with a leadoff home run in the second. Suzuki sent a 101.4 mph fastball into the Cubs’ bullpen to tie the record Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio had set earlier in this series for the fastest pitch for a postseason home run since pitch tracking began in 2008.
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But the Cubs did not score again. Megill, Misiorowski, Aaron Ashby, Chad Patrick and Abner Uribe combined to allow just four hits and one walk.
“This (Brewers) team is loaded with very good pitchers,” Counsell said. “It’s certainly a strength of the team. And that’s why they’ve won so many games. Misiorowski got four innings and 12 outs for them, and that put the game in pretty good order for them. They pitched well. They did it.”
Throughout the series, the Cubs relied on quick starts and the long ball. They went 4 for 27 with runners in scoring position.
Nearly 70% of his runs during this postseason, which also included a Wild Card Series win over the San Diego Padres, came from home runs. They totaled just six runs after the first inning in the NLDS.
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“A couple of balls didn’t go our way,” first baseman Michael Busch said. “You have to give the Brewers some credit. They pitched very well.”
After Andrew Vaughn’s solo home run put the Brewers ahead 2-1 in the fourth, the Cubs had a chance to rally. The Brewers turned the sixth inning over to Aaron Ashby, who had thrown 32 pitches in Game 4 two nights earlier.
Busch singled and Nico Hoerner was hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second with no one out. But then Ashby struck out Kyle Tucker before Patrick retired Suzuki on a deep fly to left field and struck out Ian Happ.
“That was the inning,” Counsell said. “That was the inning with the middle of the lineup. Ashby threw a pretty good pitch, 3-2 to Tucker. It looked like he was down and away in the corner. It was a nasty pitch. Seiya had a good at-bat against Patrick, certainly, he had good at-bats all night, Seiya did. And then they got out of it, essentially.”
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The loss ended a season in which Counsell believed his team “did a lot to honor the Chicago Cubs uniform.”
The Cubs went 92-70, their first 90-plus win season since 2018, and made the playoffs for the first time since 2020. They won three home elimination games this postseason before their season finally ended in Milwaukee.
“When you look back at this year’s work, there’s a lot to be proud of,” reliever Andrew Kittredge said. “It’s always hard to get eliminated. There’s only one team that wins at the end of the year. There really aren’t any moral victories in this game either. It hurts, and it’s going to hurt.”
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB