Three Two-Run Homers Crush Cubs? What Else is New?

Image courtesy of David Banks-Imagn Images

Cubs Video

Kevin Gausman was cruising. He was mowing down the visitors from the suburbs of Atlanta efficiently and impressively. Through five innings, he enjoyed a 3-0 lead, and his command of both his fastball and his splitter looked good. Unfortunately, like all his colleagues on this year's Chicago pitching staff, he never has as much margin for error as one might think or wish.

On an 0-1 pitch with one out in the sixth, Drake Baldwin hit a sharp one-hopper through the right side for a single. Early counts have been a problem for Gausman this year. He's been ambushed much more often than is usual for him, because he's too often in the meaty part of the zone while rushing to get ahead—and because he can be a bit predictable. He'd gotten a swinging strike near the top of the zone on a fastball for strike one; Baldwin knew to sit on a splitter. The splitter Gausman threw was in the zone, and it was hit hard.

It was just a bases-empty single. That shouldn't be a big deal, especially in a three-run game. It was, though, because any opposing batter who reaches even first base (hell, even one in the batter's box) is in scoring position against Cubs pitchers. No team has given up more homers than Chicago's 227—not the A's (226), who play in a minor-league park; not the Rockies (208). who play on the moon; not the nationals (204) or Reds (201). The reason for that vulnerability is a little different with each Cubs pitcher, but the vulnerability itself is a common thread tying far too many of them together.

In Gausman's case, the other problem—especially early in counts, but not solely then—is that he's too often left his fastball on the inner edge against righties this year. In the past, he was good at targeting the glove-side, outer third of the zone, where it both allowed less damage and set up his splitter better. After giving up the single to Baldwin, he left a 1-1 heater to Ronald Acuña Jr. middle-in, and he paid the predictable price. Suddenly, Chicago led only 3-2. The veteran workhorse wouldn't even escape the sixth, after having been so untouchable through five; Daniel Palencia cleaned up his mess to get the Cubs back to the bats.

The Cubs ran face-first into a wall after an early barrage against Martín Pérez, though. They scored once in the second and twice in the fourth, and then everything dried up. Thus, when Jacob Webb took over for the top of the seventh, the margin was still razor-thin—much too thin, it turned out. Webb's bugaboo is less subtle and more familiar: he's hung far too many changeups lately. The four-pitch leadoff walk he issued to Austin Riley was uncharacteristic, but when he fell behind Ozzie Albies 2-1 and then left a changeup thigh-high, everything felt (excruciatingly) right again.

Some fans, surely, had wished Edward Cabrera would get the chance that went (instead) to Webb. Craig Counsell turned to Cabrera for the eighth and ninth, to let everyone see why that wasn't a good idea, either. Cabrera's confidence is every bit as shattered as Webb's. The Cubs screwed up his onboarding and development badly in the first year after trading a top prospect for him, and he will need the offseason to get right—if he can be reclaimed, at all. He gave up a line-drive single in the top of the ninth, allowed a stolen base, moved the runner to third via a wild pitch, and then gave up a back-breaking home run on yet another meatball, this time to Baldwin. The Cubs probably didn't have a comeback in them Tuesday night, anyway, but that put the nail in their coffin.

On any night on which Pete Crow-Armstrong doesn't light up the game with his brilliance, the Cubs are depressingly mediocre. They need to fire pitching coach Tommy Hottovy, who has overseen too many failures of development and optimization to be retained. That's one of several steps between here and a solution for 2027, though. It offers nothing for 2026. To get where they hope to go—to do enough in October to make this season feel like a success—the Cubs need to find some way to stop giving up two-run homers. Unfortunately, right now, that looks unlikely. Hitting lots of home runs is not the only way to win in the playoffs, but giving up lots of them is the surest way to go home early. This team has run out of pitchers who can keep the ball in the ballpark; the results are as painful as they are predictable.