Padres 6, Cubs 4: Ten

I really wish I could just say, “The Cubs lost 6-4” and be done with it.

But. You come here for a game summary and you shall have one. It was the Cubs’ tenth straight loss. That means the Cubs had three double-digit losing streaks last calendar year, 11 from June 25-July 6, 2021, 12 from August 5-16, 2021 and this one. As of June 25, 2021, the Chicago Cubs have a record of 52-98, which is… fishy.

It’s likely to get worse before it gets better.

Let’s look at this game. I’ll be brief because… short is better with these losses.

The Cubs took a 1-0 lead on Joe Musgrove’s fifth pitch of the game, Christopher Morel. Path! [VIDEO]

Oppo for Morel, his fifth:

From there it was all downhill. Serious.

Matt Swarmer gave up three in the second round, mostly because he gave up three walks. There was also a home run by Nomar Mazara. Swarmer threw 15 pitches in the first inning and 44 in the second, yikes.

And you know? When the Padres went 3-1 up, I thought, “This game is over.” The Cubs score early – another run in the first inning – then give up the lead and act like coming back is an impossible task . what it was today

In the second round they came up to 3:2. Nico Hoerner took the lead with a walk, moved up to third with two groundouts and scored with a single from Andrelton Simmons [VIDEO].

Somehow that was Simmons’ seventh RBI as a youngster. I confess I don’t remember the other six.

So it is 3:2. A tight game! But that one-run margin might as well have been 10 or 100. After Morel Simmons followed up with another single, eight straight Cubs went down before Willson Contreras went down in the fifth single. Then eight more Cubs were retired in turn – that’s 16 of 17 from third to seventh.

Meanwhile, Swarmer gave up another run (actually scoring against Scott Effross after Swarmer left the game) and Brandon Hughes gave up one, followed by David Robertson – who hadn’t pitched since last Friday because of all the losses – served a home run to Jurickson Profar in the eighth.

So when the Cubs put another run on the board it was 6-2 and that lead couldn’t have been touched by 100 Cubs batting in an inning if you gave them 100 outs they would have made 100 outs straight a Row. I’m exaggerating… but not much.

They made it 6-3 in game eight when Contreras equalized from a miss and Ian Happ netted the double [VIDEO].

By then a lot of people had left because it was very hot again, albeit less muggy than the two night games. The Cubs managed a run from Padres closer to Taylor Rogers in the ninth. Jonathan Villar tripled and scored on this Frank Schwindel ground ball [VIDEO].

I am reduced to that. I show you a Cubs run that scored on an out that put them on two runs that might as well have been 20 or 200.

They put up more runs ahead of Musgrove (two) than he had conceded in his previous 27 innings combined. So yes?

There hasn’t been a “woo-hoo” for the Cubs lately. This… is pathetic:

So the Cubs go into a weekend series with the Braves at Wrigley Field starting Friday afternoon. The Braves are on a 14-game win streak (one short of their franchise record). With the Cubs on a 10-game losing streak, I’ve been wondering if that’s the biggest difference between winning and losing streaks for teams playing each other. I don’t have an answer yet, if I can figure it out I’ll post it tomorrow. I sent this tweet to someone I thought might know:

Meanwhile, this season continues with 99 games to go. Gosh, that’s a lot of games. That four-game sweep was the first for the Padres over the Cubs since 2010 (and only the second four-game sweep for San Diego over the Cubs of all time).

The series opener on Friday afternoon will see Keegan Thompson for the Cubs and Charlie Morton for Atlanta. Game time is again at 1:20 pm CT and televising will be on the Marquee Sports Network.