Forget the smoke, Cubs seemed stuck in London fog during loss to Phillies
The lavender haze, purple haze, London fog or whatever it was hanging over Wrigley Field and all of Chicago on Tuesday, only seemed to bother the home team.
Both the Cubs offense and starting pitcher struggled Tuesday in a 5-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, That's two losses in a row for the Cubs, but they're still 11-4 since June 9.
The Cubs emphasized the decision on whether or not to play in the smokey conditions was a joint venture by MLB and the players association.
The team had little to do with it. At no point Tuesday did it seem like the game was in danger of being postponed. Fans were late to arrive, but the stadium was close to full, with an announced crowd of 37,072.
After the game, Cubs player rep Ian Happ talked about the decision process. The air quality in Chicago was deemed to be dangerous by the National Weather Service with a rating in the 250 range.
"Consulted, yeah," Happ said. "Players union is in contact with the league on that. But the league felt the levels were playable. I think just talking to the guys, getting a sense for where everybody was at.
"I think we won't know until we're a day or two down the road if there are any effects, but just wanted to make sure everybody felt comfortable going out there, especially after a long travel day (from London)."
The Phillies experienced the bad air from Canadian wildfires earlier this season and had a home game canceled, but Happ said it was tough to compare the two situations.
"You could smell it, you could taste it," Happ said. "But I think just go out and play baseball and forget about it once you get out there. There's no line like, 250 is bad and 300 is worse, but 225 is good. There was no line for us to decide.
"Some of the Phillies guys went through it, but they also got canceled. I talked to (Phillies OF Kyle) Schwarber a little bit this morning, but everybody was just trying to get a feel for what was going to happen."
Taillon gave up 5 runs on 7 hits in 5 innings. His season ERA rose to 6.90 and the Cubs have gone 2-11 in the games he's started. Phillies center fielder Brandon Marsh hit a pair of homers and drove in 3 of the 5 Philadelphia runs.
"I thought as a whole, they just fouled off a lot of good pitches and kind of waited me out and did damage on pitches they should have done damage on," Taillon said. "My four-seam at the top hasn't been as good as it has been the past couple of years, so we've been trying to find ways in between starts to just hammer that down and get that better. I like the work we've been doing, but have to start getting more swing and miss up there.
"Curve ball with two strikes, that's a pitch I'm used to really getting it where I need to get it and it's kind of been hit or miss lately. Marsh hit a curveball that just didn't quite get to where I wanted it to go."
The Cubs offense couldn't get much going against Phillies left-hander Ranger Suarez. They got a few tough calls on low pitches for strike three and never seemed confident at the plate.
The Cubs didn't get two runners on base until the eighth inning, when Suarez finally departed and Nico Hoerner greeted reliever Gregory Soto with an RBI single. But Soto threw a 99-mile per hour fastball past Seiya Suzuki, then got Happ to chase a slider in the dirt to end the threat.
Jet lag was probably a bigger factor than the smokey sky. The Cubs played a game Sunday in London which started at 9 a.m. Chicago time, which means they were getting to the ballpark around 5 a.m. Two days later, they were under the lights at Wrigley.
"It was definitely a transition, landing at 10 (a.m.) and trying to stay up that first day," Hoerner said before the game. "But I think we're feeling pretty good now."
"They're doing what they can to educate us on how to bounce our bodies back," outfielder Mike Tauchman added. "It won't be easy, but guys know what they're doing."
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