Cubs: Questioning the pitch calling in Monday’s sixth-inning dumpster fire

For five innings on Monday, Adbert Alzolay was cruising against the Milwaukee Brewers. The offense was expectedly awful, but the young Chicago Cubs right-hander looked like the real deal.

He was mixing his fastball with his breaking stuff masterfully – until the wheels came off in the sixth inning when he started relying on his slider more and more. Omar Narvaez led off with a single and then Daniel Robertson walked on six pitches – four of which were sliders.

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After a mound visit from pitching coach Tommy Hottovy, Alzolay attacked Billy McKinney with three-straight sliders, culminating in a single to load the bases with nobody out. With the bases full, Javier Baez turned a ground ball off the bat of Lorenzo Cain into a force out at home for the first out of the inning.

Alzolay’s night ended there – with the Cubs clinging to a slim 1-0 lead. Manager David Ross went to left-hander Andrew Chafin in a tough spot, but the fan-favorite hurler ran into trouble on the first pitch he threw – a bases-clearing double off the bat of pinch-hitter Luis Urias. It didn’t get better from there, either. By the time the dust settled on the sixth, the Brewers had scored six times en route to s series-opening win.

Cubs: Pitch selection in that sixth was questionable, at best

I’m not here to second-guess Ross going to Chafin in that spot. A left-handed hitter, Dan Vogelbach, was due up and, on paper, that makes sense. Go with your most prominent lefty and see if he can get out of the jam. I have no problem with that decision.

Alzolay has a nice slider. Along with his fastball and sinker, it’s among his best pitches. But in that sixth inning, Willson Contreras went all-in on the slider, with his battery mate throwing it for eight of his 15 pitches (53.3 percent). On the year, Alzolay throws that pitch just under 40 percent of the time. But it seemed like Brewers hitters were sitting on that pitch (specifically in the McKinney at-bat) and, for the life of me, I don’t see why we didn’t see more sinkers and fastballs in that inning.

The velocity was still there – and that pitch had been effective all night long. Maybe I’m reading too much into that sixth inning. But it looked like after five stellar innings, the Cubs’ gameplan changed – and wound up backfiring in a big way.