Bullpen woes resurface for Cubs in heat of Wild Card race

CHICAGO – The Cubs will have to wait another year to try to unseat the rival Brewers as the National League Central champions.

With a 6-3 loss to the Braves on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, the North Siders were officially knocked out of the division race. The loss allowed the Brewers to clinch their fourth consecutive Central title, creating a situation where the Cubs can now hope for a potential rematch with Milwaukee on the October stage for a second straight year.

The Cubs labored to get much going against Braves lefty Martín Pérez on Tuesday night, while Chicago’s bullpen added another tough night in what has been a trying few weeks for the group.

“We’ve got to score more runs,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “But yeah, we’ve got to get guys pitching well and we’ve got to have guys that we can count on, and multiple guys we can count on. We’re not going to survive if we don’t have multiple guys we can count on.”

Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s loss to Atlanta:

1. The playoff picture

With the loss, the Cubs maintained their half-game lead over the Phillies in the race for the NL’s top Wild Card spot. Technically, the advantage is effectively a full game for Chicago, which holds the tiebreaker over the Phillies after going 6-1 against them in the season series.

That means, at the moment, the Cubs are in line to host a Wild Card Series in the first round of the postseason. That was the case a year ago, when Chicago beat San Diego, 2-1, in the best-of-three Wild Card round at Wrigley Field.

“Honestly, this time of year, everything is obviously magnified. And there’s a lot of pressure,” Cubs starter Kevin Gausman said. “You can’t forget what has [gotten] you here. I haven’t been around this team that long, but it’s a super loose team.

“So we’ve just got to keep that mentality of not letting these games that mean a lot, mean too much. You have to find a way to go into a game and still have fun out there.”

The Padres had an eight-game winning streak snapped by the Rockies on Tuesday night, leaving them 1 1/2 games behind the Cubs and in the third Wild Card spot. The D-backs had a late game against the Marlins and came into the day 2 1/2 games back of the Padres. Chicago holds tiebreakers over both the Padres and D-backs.

2. Gausman’s outing

Gausman cruised through five innings against the Braves before finally flinching in the sixth. In a way, it was a summation of his eight-start tenure with Chicago since coming over at the Trade Deadline.

Gausman has had mixed results for the North Siders to date, logging three quality starts and also having three outings with at least five runs allowed. Tuesday’s effort was somewhere in the middle, with two runs on his line in 5 2/3 innings. The veteran righty blanked Atlanta’s offense until yielding a two-run homer to Ronald Acuña Jr. in the sixth.

“Just one bad pitch to a really good hitter,” Gausman said. “The pitch was just kind of right where he likes to hit them. I just can’t do that. It’s a big spot in the game. I’d done a really good job up to that point of kind of keeping them down and keeping the momentum on our side. The homer definitely gave them some momentum.”

Overall, Gausman struck out six and issued no walks in his showing, which included eight outs via grounders (all coming within the first five innings). The starter did generate 15 whiffs (12 courtesy of his splitter) and was solid across the board until the third time through the Braves’ order.

3. Bullpen drama continues

The Cubs have been trying to get veteran righty Jacob Webb back into a rhythm amid a recent run of poor production on the mound. Following what Chicago hoped was a step forward in its last series, Webb struggled again Tuesday night.

Trying to hold a 3-2 lead, Webb took over in the seventh and issued a leadoff walk to Austin Riley. Two batters later, Ozzie Albies attacked a 2-1 changeup from Webb for a two-run, go-ahead homer. In his last eight appearances – immediately following a 24-game scoreless streak – Webb has allowed 11 runs and four homers in 6 2/3 innings.

“The walk to lead off the inning is the thing I look back on,” Counsell said. “It’s a four-pitch walk – not something that [Webb] does. That’s kind of what gets you in trouble and makes a home run hurt.”

Righty Edward Cabrera, who recently returned from the injured list, made his bullpen debut behind Webb. Cabrera escaped the seventh and got through the eighth unscathed. In the ninth, two runners reached, but Cabrera picked off Brewer Hicklen at first base (helped by a replay challenge by the Cubs). Cabrera then allowed a two-run homer to Drake Baldwin that erased the perceived momentum.

“I definitely would say you can feel more [pressure], especially in the situation we were in,” Cabrera said via team interpreter Fredy Quevedo Jr. “We were only [down] by one run. When you’re in situations like that, those errors are magnified.”