Did someone forget to tell the Cubs that the season resumed on Friday?
Because they sure played like they didn’t remember. All the good baseball they’d played for the couple of weeks before the break was out the proverbial window. Strikeouts galore, nothing doing for the first few innings, then even when runs scored, tons of runners were left on base: 2-for-8 with RISP and 10 left on base overall in a dull 5-2 loss to the Diamondbacks.
Well, the weather was nice, anyway.
Justin Steele just didn’t have it in this game. He let the first two D-backs on base and got out of the inning with a double play, but several long counts ran up his pitch count early and that showed in a three-run Arizona third inning in which the D-backs had five hits, all singles, none hit all that hard but they did damage all the same.