Chicago Cubs: Offense ‘Fried’ as team falls to 1-5 on the year

On a blustery night in Atlanta, the Chicago Cubs failed to turn things around. Despite some late-game fireworks, the team once again failed to pick up a win.

I do my best to be optimistic about this team. As fickle as the Chicago Cubs faithful can undoubtedly be, especially with the way the season has unfortunately started, it can be challenging to stay positive when early season expectations are completely dumped on, which has been the case thus far.

That being said, the line is there where enough is enough. Now don’t get me wrong, I am sure nobody is more frustrated than our boys. However, that frustration can boil over, and for myself, the line is just a bit thinner after Thursday’s loss, and resulting sweep, to the Atlanta Braves.

Throughout the night there were sadly many negatives. However, I am a ‘glass half-full’ kind of thinker and can undoubtedly find positives in a game laden with more fireworks than a Michael Bay movie, but not all in a good way.

Chicago Cubs: Positive signs from Yu Darvish

Darvish’s season debut was as uninspiring as a start can get. However, grace should be given to him as he works his way back to meaningful starts. Thursday’s start was just his second since May 20 of last year. Hopefully, fans understand it will take time for Darvish to gain traction.

While there are still challenges ahead, and Thursday was by no means pretty, Darvish did show improvement over his last game. The right-hander failed to make it beyond the fifth inning, giving way to Carl Edwards Jr. after a difficult start. That being said, 66 percent of Darvish’ pitches landed for strikes and produced a lot more swings and misses than he did last weekend in Texas.

When looking at the box score, it shows Darvish allowed four walks in his four innings of work. As this is true, one of the free passes to account for was to Dansby Swanson as an intentional walk. Darvish walked a batter in each of the first two innings, yet the control showed up tonight that most have not seen in a while.

Chicago Cubs: Another awful night for the bullpen

Following a leadoff double from Ender Inciarte in the fifth and a walk to Josh Donaldson, pitching coach Tommy Hottovy turned things over to Carl Edwards Jr. The lanky hurler promptly walked Freddie Freeman, loading the bases with nobody out before uncorking a wild pitch, allowing a run to score.

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Edwards followed it up with a walk to Ronald Acuna Jr. before the Cubs made another move by bringing in Tyler Chatwood. Nick Markakis immediately gifted Chatwood with a bases-clearing double putting the Braves up 5-0. The Braves were not done, however, as Ozzie Albies singled and came around to score another run on Swanson’s RBI single.

The ‘glass half-full’ with Chatwood on Thursday night has to be the zero walks he allowed. As someone who has struggled with command since arriving on the North Side, it is a positive thing to see and something he can hopefully build on moving forward.

Mike Montgomery came in following Chatwood, allowing three earned runs in two innings worth of work. As it was all night, the Cubs got tagged with some bad luck in the eighth inning, following Contreras’ catcher interference with two outs. It allowed the inning to continue and Markakis made Montgomery pay with a two-run double.

Darvish was not great; I’ll give you that, however, the bullpen continues to underwhelm and frankly, implode at almost every opportunity they receive. Something needs to change moving forward because if not it will be a very long season.