CHICAGO -- Cubs manager Joe Maddon wanted to once again see the fire that Yu Darvish displayed on the mound in Miami earlier this week. When the pitcher took on the D-backs Saturday afternoon, Maddon hoped there would be a leap forward after recent baby steps in the right direction.

"Pitch with the emotion that I saw last time," Maddon said prior to Saturday's 6-0 loss to Arizona at Wrigley Field. "I'm really stuck on that with him right now. I think if he just goes out there and pitches with animation and just takes off all the shackles that surround him and just plays, I would take that, because the ability is that good."

Facing the D-backs, Darvish never touched 99 mph with his fastball or displayed the same kind of demeanor as he did in his turn against the Marlins. Instead, the Cubs right-hander labored out of the gates in a five-inning performance, put the North Siders in an early hole and watched as Arizona's veteran starter Zack Greinke carved up Chicago's lineup to halt the club's four-game winning streak.

Here are the three moments that paved the path to Saturday’s loss for the Cubs.

Darvish digs a hole
For the second straight afternoon, the wind off Lake Michigan was stiff and cold and blowing in. Anything hit to center field was destined to swirl toward right and get knocked down. Balls hit high enough directly to right field would be a different story, as Darvish found out in the first inning.

"That's baseball here," said Jason Heyward, who was tasked with manning center field on Saturday.

Two batters into the opening frame, Darvish slipped into a 2-0 hole against Eduardo Escobar. The righty came back with a 92.7 mph four-seamer but left it right in the middle of the strike zone. Arizona's third baseman pulled it with an exit velocity of 104.1 mph to right field, where it dropped mid-way up the bleacher seats.

"Escobar crunched that thing," Maddon said.

Darvish shook it off momentarily with two good sliders to David Peralta, who swung and missed on both pitches as they tailed inside. The Cubs starter decided to go with the same strategy with his 0-2 pitch, firing a third straight slider to the D-backs' left fielder. This time, Peralta made the adjustment, getting his hands in enough to pull the low breaking pitch out to right field at 111.3 mph.

"That's the pitch I wanted," Darvish said. "A back-foot slider. It's just … he got it. That's it."

Heyward vs. Greinke
Hampered by the windy conditions on Friday, where a routine pop-up could easily turn into an adventurous two-run double, Kris Bryant was denied a home run to start the fourth inning against Greinke.

Bryant crushed a pitch to deep center with an exit velocity of 105.4 mph and a launch angle of 28 degrees. Those metrics are relevant because that combination has a homer probability of 89 percent, per Statcast. This time, however, the wind pushed it forward and the ball bounced off the warning track and into the stands for a leadoff ground-rule double.

"He crushed it. Really," Maddon said.

After that at-bat, Greinke responded with two outs and a walk to Willson Contreras, setting up a critical confrontation with Heyward with runners on the corners and Arizona holding on to a 3-0 lead. For the first eight pitches, Greinke emptied the tank. The righty elevated. He went below the zone. He left pitches over the middle and tried to get Heyward to chase outside. He threw three changeups (two fouls and one ball), three curves (two fouls, one ball) and two four-seamers (one ball, one called strike).llson llson

"He looked good on a curveball I threw and then he was late on a changeup and he was pretty good on another curveball," Greinke said. "For a couple of pitches, I was thinking fastball was the right pitch, but in our plan that wasn’t really what we wanted to do. He was on time on the offspeed, so I was just going to try it out."

For the ninth pitch, what was Heyward expecting?

"What was I looking for? I would never tell anyone," Heyward said. "But I wasn't looking for anything. You can't look for any one pitch against him. Honestly, man. You've just got to try to be ready to hit in the zone and be ready for a strike. Easier said than done."

Greinke came back with a fastball that popped low in the strike zone for an inning-ending punchout. After watching the pitch, Heyward flipped away his helmet and gloves and strolled back out to center.

"It worked, but it was also a quality pitch," Greinke said. "If it had come back more over the plate, I don’t know what the results would have been."

"He was able to make that last pitch on me," Heyward said. "You've got to tip your hat. He threw a perfect pitch."

Maddon's decision
Darvish settled down and limited the damage to three runs -- it could have been more given that he also walked three in the loss -- but his spot in the batting order was due up in the fifth. Even after Greinke retired the first two batters in the inning, Maddon felt aiming for offense was the right strategy.

With Darvish at 88 pitches through five, Maddon called Mark Zagunis off the bench as a pinch-hitter.

"It was just a National League moment," Maddon said. "Even with two outs, you don't know if that guy gets on with two outs, and then all of a sudden you get a rally going. That happens. It was 88 pitches, which was right on the brink anyway after five innings."

Zagunis struck out and then the in-game maneuvering really came back to bite the Cubs.

In the top of the sixth, right-hander Allen Webster came out of the bullpen and was charged with three runs (two earned) on five hits. Two of those runs came on an opposite-field home run by John Ryan Murphy, who also capitalized on the wind tunnel out to right field.

Darvish did not question Maddon's move, but the pitcher said he felt he could have kept going, especially after an impressive 11-pitch fifth inning.

"Yeah. I wanted to go. Definitely," Darvish said. "But I understand. Baseball here is different than the American League. I'm a little disappointed, but that's the National League."