ST. LOUIS — After beating Los Angeles Dodgers aces Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke to start their week, the Chicago Cubs received a cold water bucket full of reality the next five games.
Losing to the Dodgers’ Mike Bolsinger and Carlos Frias wasn’t the best way to go into St. Louis, and once at Busch Stadium, Chicago’s talented but largely inexperienced lineup was fighting a battle it couldn’t win against the majors’ best pitching staff.
In 28 innings against Cardinals pitching, the Cubs managed four measly runs, half coming Friday night in a 3-2, 10-inning loss. They didn’t lack for chances in that game or through the first four innings of an 8-1 defeat Saturday night, but they simply failed to produce clutch hits.
The Cardinals completed the sweep with a 4-1 decision Sunday night.
“We’ve seen Dodger pitching, we’ve seen Cardinal pitching, and that’s really good pitching,” Chicago manager Joe Maddon said. “You have a young, inexperienced group offensively, and they’re being schooled right now a little bit.”
Even with the season-worst, five-game losing streak, the Cubs are 39-35 — still far better than they have done since earning their last playoff berth in 2008. However, the current skid is another example that the construction project still has some key pieces left to install.
“You can see the inexperience showed up the last seven games,” Maddon said. “We’ll be back. We have to get back our offensive mojo.”