Chicago Cubs Score and Recap (5/27/24): Brewers 5, Cubs 1 – Madrigal Error, Offensive Incompetence Waste Steele Gem

The Cubs’ tailspin continued Monday with another low-scoring loss, this time against the first-place Brewers. A brilliant effort from starter Justin Steele was completely wasted by the utterly incompetent Chicago offense and a brutal error led to a big Milwaukee 8th inning that put the game away.

Steele was sharp from the start on this Memorial Day and had very little traffic on the bases. The same could be said of his Brewers counterpart, Robert Gasser, who matched him zero for zero through six frames.

The Cubs got a pair of singles from Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger to lead off the 7th inning and knocked Gasser out of the game. Lefty Bryan Hudson took over and retired the next three hitters in order to maintain the tie.

Mark Leiter Jr. came on in the bottom of the 8th and ran into trouble for the second consecutive outing, giving up a single and a walk to begin the frame. Then he appeared to get a double play ground ball to third off the bat of William Contreras, but Nick Madrigal booted it for an error that allowed the go-ahead run to score.

Leiter then struck out Christian Yelich before being replaced by Hayden Wesneski, who promptly surrendered a back-breaking three-run homer to Willy Adames to make it a 4-0 game. Milwaukee would add one more tally and the Cubs would add a meaningless sacrifice fly from Patrick Wisdom in the 9th for a 5-1 final score. (Box score)

Key Moment

The Cubs might have been able to wriggle off the hook in the 8th if Madrigal had completed the double play, although it’s hard to know if the offense would have been able to do anything to take advantage.

Why the Cubs Lost

It’s just the same old story again and again with a truly broken lineup doing absolutely nothing to help the pitching staff.

Stats That Matter

• This was far and away Steele’s best outing of the season and he got absolutely no help from the rest of his team: 7 IP, 0 R, 3 H, 8 K, and 1 BB.
• Chicago had a total of five hits and they were all singles.

Bottom Line

The Cubs as currently constituted just aren’t working, especially on offense, and it’s time for a shakeup. Pete Crow-Armstrong needs to be playing every day and Bellinger should be playing first base. It is well past time to end the Madrigal experiment because he offers nothing of value to the roster if he’s not batting .300 or so. Finally, they have to bring in a catcher that is at least a competent hitter, because having a combined OPS under .550 from that position is just not acceptable. That probably isn’t enough but it would at least demonstrate Jed Hoyer and company understand the status quo is not going to work.

On Deck

The Cubs try to show some kind of life Tuesday at 6:40pm CT. Ben Brown gets the start against Freddy Peralta in a contest airing on Marquee and 670 The Score.