Cubs pocket pancake the Brewers
At least Andrew Vaughn out-pitched Kyle Harrison
The Cubs and Brewers kicked off a flurry of seven games in ten days last night with a marquee pitching matchup of Clay Holmes against Kyle Harrison. Harrison, a one-time top prospect with the Giants was traded twice in a seven month span first from the Giants to the Red Sox in the Rafael Devers in season last year, then from the Red Sox to the Brewers in the...uh...Caleb Durbin trade, I guess?
The Red Sox made the trade because they were in dire need of a third baseman because the Cubs signed Alex Bregman away from them. And then for about half of this season it looked like the Cubs ended up on the short end of the stick in those somewhat related transactions.
Harrison harnessed his mighty stuff and reached the All-Star Break 8-2 with a 3.01 ERA. He went on the disabled list shortly before the break, but came back and was 2-1 with a 1.83 ERA in four starts before last night.
Bregman struggled in the first half, hitting just .241/.335/.359 with nine homers and 41 RBI.
The Brewers came into the first game at Wrigley with an eight game lead in the division, taking some of the excitement out of the week and a half to come.
The Cubs recent struggles, mostly fueled by a bullpen that has careened off the rails, again, have averted their gaze from the Brewers who are ahead of them to the Phillies who have crept even with them in the Wild Card standings. It's bad enough to have to settle for the Wild Card series, it's worse if you have to go on the road for that nonsense.
The Cubs shuffled their rotation around before last weekend and flipped Shōta Imanaga and Holmes so that Shōta would miss the Brewers. He pitched on Sunday and had a hard time missing the fat part of the Reds' bats and gave up six runs and three homers.
But Counsell got what he wanted. Holmes against the Brewers with a chance to go toe to toe against Harrison.
And what happened?
Holmes pitched six scoreless innings against the scrappy Brewers.
And the Cubs beat the tits off of Harrison to the tune of NINE runs.
