PHILADELPHIA – The home-white jerseys have run their course.
The Cubs are proper again the place they’ve spent most of this in relation to the highway: in the midst of it, watching headlights.
And not even the most well liked starter on the employees and the most well liked hitter within the lineup might save the Cubs on this night time – regardless of massive performances once more from Jose Quintana and Nick Castellanos.
Not even in opposition to the reeling Phillies.
Not on the highway.
Not as soon as the sport obtained to the depleted bullpen.
Not once more.
Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto drove in his third run of the sport within the seventh on a two-out double off David Phelps, and Roman Quinn tripled residence one other two-out run off rookie Duane Underwood within the eighth.
And similar to that the Cubs misplaced the opener of the three-game collection in Philadelphia, 4-2 – sending them to their third loss in 4 video games and placing them on the point of a 12th consecutive winless highway collection.
The Cubs haven’t gained a highway collection the center of May, and have misplaced 25 of their 36 highway video games since that collection in Washington.
They opened this highway journey in Cincinnati on Thursday by bringing their residence jerseys on the journey and hanging them at every locker within the guests’ clubhouse – then routed the Reds 12-5.
Then they misplaced the subsequent two video games and barely escaped with a four-game cut up after outlasting Reds ace Luis Castillo Sunday and coming again in opposition to the bullpen for a 6-Three victory.
The residence jerseys had been hanging on the lockers once more Tuesday however might be in jeopardy for Wednesday.
Especially after shedding to a Phillies group that has struggled for greater than a month, together with 5 losses in its earlier six video games and that took the sector just some hours after firing hitting coach John Mallee, the previous Cubs hitting coach.
Until the sport reached a Cubs bullpen lacking its three greatest late-inning pitchers to accidents (Craig Kimbrel, Brandon Kintzler and Steve Cishek), Quintana made the Phillies hitters look misplaced with out Mallee a lot of the night time with a career-high 14 strikeouts.
That included the ultimate 4 he confronted and eight of the ultimate 10 on an evening he walked just one in his six innings.
Quintana matched Jon Lester (in 2015) for essentially the most strikeouts in a recreation by a left-hander in franchise historical past since no less than 1908 (way back to dependable game-by-game information go).
Since going 9 consecutive begins and not using a victory, Quintana now has gone eight and not using a loss (6-0, 3.40 ERA) – with 50 strikeouts and simply seven walks in these 47 2/Three innings.
In three August begins he has a 1.89 ERA with 26 strikeouts and one stroll.
And he would have left this one in line for a victory if not for Ian Happ’s error on a routine popup to second with one out within the third.
After J.T. Realmuto’s pop clanked off Happ’s glove, Jean Segura adopted with a single to ship Realmuto to 3rd, and Scott Kingery then delivered a fly to deep left for the sacrifice fly that drove residence the primary run of the sport.
Phillies starter Jason “knock you the [expletive] out, bro” Vargas had no-hit the Cubs by way of three at that time.
But Castellanos led off the fourth with a slower curler previous the mound and thru a shift-vacated gap on the best facet for a single and finally scored on Javy Baez’ one-out sacrifice fly.
Realmuto and Castellanos then traded solo homers within the fifth and sixth, respectively to assist guarantee the bullpens would determine this one.