CHICAGO -- It is a play that Pete Crow-Armstrong has made countless times throughout his life as a center fielder. He charged in, lowered his glove and prepared to retrieve the ball that Brewers third baseman David Hamilton sent bouncing through the grass in center on Wednesday night.
The loud gasp from the Wrigley Field crowd told the rest of the story.
Crow-Armstrong -- arguably the best defensive player in the game -- simply missed the ball. Hamilton was off to the races, pulling off a Little League-style home run that put three runs on the board in the second inning and had the Cubs on their way to a gut-punch of a 5-0 loss to Milwaukee.
This was one of those nights for the North Siders.
“We’re in a funk right now,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s up to us to change it. We’re the ones who are going to change it.”
Crow-Armstrong made that game-changing error, Cubs starter Edward Cabrera exited early due to injury (the only good news being that it was a blister on his right middle finger) and Chicago’s struggling offense could not get anything going against lefty Kyle Harrison. It all added up to a fifth straight loss, including three straight to the team Chicago is now chasing in the division.
The Cubs came into this series -- the first meeting with the Brewers since losing in five games in the National League Division Series -- with a 1 1/2-game lead atop the NL Central. The three-game brooming at the hands of the Brewers now has the Cubs facing the same deficit, following losses in nine of their past 11 games.
“We didn’t play the way we wanted to this series -- the last five games, really,” Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman said. “But over the course of 162, the cream always rises to the top. I believe in this group.”
Crow-Armstrong entered the evening leading the Majors in Statcast’s Fielding Run Value (11), but his second-inning blunder continued a rough few days. Prior to Monday’s opener, he held court with reporters to apologize for his “choice of words” in a verbal spat with a White Sox fan caught on camera one night earlier. In Tuesday’s loss, he missed an easy fly ball off the bat of Sal Frelick.
In the second on Wednesday, Cabrera saw Frelick reach with one out via a catcher’s interference call against Chicago’s Carson Kelly. Cabrera then walked Joey Ortiz to set things up for Hamilton, who lined a pitch up the middle for a single. Crow-Armstrong went to glove it on the second hop and was soon chasing the ball down, but there was no halting Hamilton’s sprint.
“Yesterday and today are genuinely laughable,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I think one thing I can fall back on is that it’s never really a lack of focus, but trying too hard and trying to make up for the lack of production that I've given this team and this city. And, not acting how I should.
“I think anything physical usually starts mental, and I think that’s just what I’m showing everybody right now. You show up and keep pushing, but that can’t happen. That kind of stuff, that just can’t happen.”
“He just messed up,” Counsell said. “Things happen, and we’ve got to move on from them.”
Cabrera brushed off Crow-Armstrong’s mistake.
“Everyone knows how great of a player PCA is,” Cabrera said via team translator, Fredy Quevedo Jr. “So when I saw it, I said, ‘It’s OK.’ Those are things that are going to happen. We’re human. We’re going to make mistakes. The important thing is just to show support.”
With Ortiz up to lead off the fourth inning, Cabrera opened with a fastball that sailed high and only clocked in at 92.5 mph on the radar gun. That was alarming and Kelly immediately looked to the Cubs’ dugout, where Counsell emerged with an athletic trainer. Cabrera’s day was done with four runs (one earned) on his line.
Counsell said Cabrera’s next start was potentially in jeopardy due to the blister, which the manager noted had been a minor issue prior to Wednesday. Cabrera, on the other hand, expressed optimism that he could manage the setback and get back out there soon.
“I’m not worried,” Cabrera said. “My mentality is in five days I’m going to go out there.”
Meanwhile, Harrison seemingly breezed through the Cubs’ order.
After Nico Hoerner led off the first inning with a double, the Cubs went without a hit in their next 18 plate appearances against the Brewers' lefty. That run ended with a Bregman single in the seventh, but the damage was done by that point. Harrison ended with 11 strikeouts, marking the most by an opposing pitcher against Chicago this season.
Bregman said the recent stretch could be a “good thing” in the long run.
"We can go back to the basics,” he said. “And get back to executing in all phases of the game. I’m not worried at all. We’ve got a great group in here. Guys have been through ups and downs and know how this game works.”