October baseball won’t be in the cards for the Chicago Cubs this year.
After officially getting eliminated from postseason contention on Saturday, Chicago will have to rebound on Sunday afternoon for the finale of a four-game series with the visiting Washington Nationals.
It was the New York Mets who dealt the Cubs (79-76) the lethal blow, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 6-3 on Saturday to take a seven-game lead over Chicago in the National League wild-card race.
New York (86-69) holds the third wild-card spot, and with just seven games left and a 4-3 deficit in the season series with the Mets, the Cubs have no chance of reaching the playoffs.
“It’s a bummer that it came to an end officially,” Chicago’s Patrick Wisdom said. “I feel like it kinda slipped through our hands, in a way.”
Wisdom provided the Cubs’ only run during their 5-1 loss to Washington (69-86) on Saturday. He ended left-hander MacKenzie Gore’s no-hit bid with one out in the bottom of the seventh, giving a fastball a 421-foot ride to left-center for his eighth homer of the season.
Still, Gore dominated the Chicago lineup, something that right-hander Jake Irvin (10-12, 4.07 ERA) hopes to do on Sunday.
Irvin has had his struggles against the Cubs, though, going 0-1 with an 8.00 ERA in two career starts against them.
Last time out, Irvin went against Chicago’s newly minted nemesis — the Mets. He yielded just one run on four hits in 7 1/3 innings but had to settle for a no-decision in what ended up being a 2-1 loss in 10 innings for the Nationals on Monday.
“The beginning of the year, we talked to him about focusing on attacking the strike zone and keeping the ball down, and he did that,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said of Irvin. “He has been really good.
“I really felt he really had a chance to make the All-Star team. That’s how good he was. He had a little funk after that, then he came right back and he has been really good.”
Left-hander Shota Imanaga (14-3, 3.03 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Cubs on Sunday.
In his most recent outing, Imanaga held the Oakland Athletics to two runs and five hits in six innings on Monday. He fanned 11 and walked three while winning his fifth straight start, 9-2.
Over those five games, Imanaga has a 2.73 ERA. He earned a win after giving up three runs on four hits in six innings on Aug. 30 in his only previous start against Washington.
But when the southpaw goes back up against the Nationals, he won’t have to worry about All-Star shortstop CJ Abrams.
Washington optioned Abrams to Triple-A Rochester on Saturday, with multiple media outlets reporting the move came as a result of the player’s all-nighter at a Chicago-area casino ahead of the Nationals’ game against the Cubs on Friday. First pitch of that contest was set for 1:20 p.m. local time.
“I just want it to be known, it wasn’t performance-based,” Martinez said of the decision to demote Abrams. “It’s an internal issue. I’m not gonna give specifics or talk about specifics because I need to keep these guys … on the down low.”
Infielder Trey Lipscomb was brought up to take Abrams’ roster spot. He did not play on Saturday.
