Phillies 13, Cubs 7: Losing ugly

What more can be said about a game where your starting pitcher has the worst start of his career and the bullpen made things worse?

The reasonable answer to that question is, “Not much,” but you come here for a game recap and so, you will get one for the Cubs’ terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 13-7 loss to the Phillies Monday night in Philadelphia.

You kind of knew things weren’t going the Cubs’ way when Kyle Schwarber homered in the first inning. Another Phillies run crossed the plate in the second, and then Schwarber homered again in the third, this time with Trea Turner on base.

The Cubs actually made the game sort of close in the fourth. Carson Kelly led off with a single and Dansby Swanson followed that with a home run [VIDEO].

That was Swanson’s second homer in as many days and it does appear he’s coming out of his season-starting slump. Now it’s 4-2 and, well, teams have come back from two-run deficits in the fourth inning.

Not this time. The Phillies scored five times in the fifth off Assad, this time without a home run involved, before Craig Counsell had mercy and replaced him with Jacob Webb. Webb actually got out of the fifth with no further runs scoring.

Just in case you didn’t have enough bad news about Assad, here’s more from BCB’s JohnW53:

Javier Assad is the first Cubs pitcher to allow at least nine runs in a game since reliever Ryan Pressly’s nine-run, no-out meltdown at home against the Giants on May 6 of last year. The previous starter who did that was Hayden Wesneski, who gave up 11 runs in 4.0 innings at St. Louis on July 13, 2024. Shōta Imanaga had given up 10 in 3.0 at home against the Mets on June 21, 2024. Those were the only three before Monday’s game since June 3, 2022, when Marcus Stroman gave up 10 in 4.0 at home against the Cardinals.

Just-recalled Charlie Barnes entered the game in the sixth. I’ll spare you the details of the carnage, but when the inning was over the Phillies had three more runs and a 12-2 lead, and they plated another one off Barnes in the seventh.

The game was entering “position player pitcher” territory at that point, but the Cubs decided to get the bats out in the eighth. Ian Happ led off with a double and scored on this single by Moisés Ballesteros [VIDEO].

Swanson then walked and Miguel Amaya was hit by a pitch, loading the bases with nobody out. Pete Crow-Armstrong singled, with two runs scoring, one on an error [VIDEO].

Matt Shaw then reached on an error, with Amaya scoring [VIDEO].

[Two outs later, Seiya Suzuki singled in PCA VIDEO].

Well. Now it’s 13-7 and that forced the Phillies to call on one of their leverage relievers, Orion Kerkering. Ian Happ was the next batter. If, somehow, Happ could have gone deep, the game would actually have become close but… Happ looked at three pitches from Kerkering and struck out.

And that was basically it. Besides the pitching issues in this game, the Cubs once again had tons of baserunners who were stranded. They left 10 runners on base and went 4-for-16 with RISP. Not that this excuses the pitching, but now the Cubs have gone 7-for-51 (.137) with RISP over their last four games and left 47 runners on base, an average of 12 LOB per game. And that includes Kelly’s game-winning single on Sunday. Yikes.

So there are multiple issues that need to be addressed, and soon. Barnes wound up throwing the final three innings, so all the Cubs’ leverage relievers got the night off (save Webb, who threw only eight pitches). That’s about the only positive I can take out of this one.

The Cubs will look to even up the series Tuesday evening in Philadelphia. The original schedule had Colin Rea listed as Tuesday’s starter, but after Monday’s game the Cubs announced that Riley Martin would start, presumably as an opener, with Rea following. Aaron Nola will start for the Phillies. Game time is again 5:40 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.