David Peterson did his job. Five innings, two runs, six strikeouts, the kind of start that wins most nights. The Cubs lost anyway, 10-8, and the blame sits somewhere else.
Trent Thornton hadn't allowed a run in August before Friday. Going back to mid-June, he'd been about as reliable as anyone in that bullpen. Then Craig Counsell handed him the sixth inning against a Reds lineup still down 3-0 and hunting for someone to punish, and Cincinnati punished him. Five runs in the frame. Tyler Stephenson's three-run homer did the heaviest lifting, with Jose Trevino, TJ Friedl and Sal Stewart all going deep across the game. Nine unanswered runs turned a comfortable Cubs lead into a laugher in the other direction.
The Cubs' lineup and rotation aren't the problem here. Alex Bregman and Michael Busch staked them to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Peterson kept them in it. The bullpen gave it all back, and then some. A team leading the NL Wild Card race shouldn't lose a game where the starter pitches well and the offense scores eight runs. Keep doing that and October gets a lot harder to reach.
Credit Chicago for not going quietly. Down 9-4 after Elly De La Cruz's bases-loaded single in the seventh, the Cubs clawed back to 9-8 in the eighth on Seiya Suzuki's double and a three-run homer from rookie Pedro Ramírez. It wasn't enough, though: Friedl took Daniel Palencia deep in the ninth to put it away, and Palencia was already at the center of one bullpen meltdown against Arizona just days earlier. Twice in a week now, the same reliever has been the story for the wrong reasons. That's not a coincidence. If I'm Counsell, I'm rethinking who I trust in the eighth and ninth before this turns into a September problem instead of an August one.
For Cincinnati, the bigger story is what this snaps. The Reds had been miserable against Chicago all season, swept in a four-game set back in May and sitting at 1-6 in the season series before Friday. One win doesn't erase that history, and the Cubs made the point emphatically by blowing Cincinnati out the very next day. But for one night, the Reds' power finally showed up against the team that had owned them.
This game is a warning light for Chicago's bullpen management. It doesn't mean their season is in trouble. They're still holding the wild card lead as of this weekend. But if Thornton and Palencia keep having nights like this, that lead won't hold itself.
