Tough 5th inning sends Patrick to loss vs. Cubs

CHICAGO -- By the time Chad Patrick was set to go through the Cubs’ lineup for the third time Tuesday night, he’d helped pitch the Brewers to a lead.

He had to work around some traffic in the early innings to hold Chicago to one score, and combined with Isaac Collins’ two-run home run in the second, that was enough to give Milwaukee a one-score lead heading into the bottom of the fifth.

Patrick retired the Cubs’ No. 9 hitter, third baseman Matt Shaw, to start the frame. That brought the top of the order to the plate, with the switch-hitting Ian Happ and left-handed Kyle Tucker due up. The Brewers had left-handed reliever Rob Zastryzny warming up in the bullpen, but manager Pat Murphy elected to leave Patrick in.

The rest of the inning didn’t go Milwaukee’s way.

Patrick walked Happ, followed by a double off the wall for Tucker. Two pitches later, designated hitter Seiya Suzuki drove Patrick’s 94.8 mph sinker into the left-center bleachers for what became the game-deciding three-run homer in the Brewers’ 5-3 loss at Wrigley Field.

The main scenario in which Murphy would’ve gone to Zastryzny, the skipper said, was if the left-handed-hitting Tucker came up with two men on and nobody out. Tucker did enter Tuesday with a higher OPS against lefties than righties, but lefty-on-lefty is still generally the desired matchup.

Regardless, when Patrick -- who finished with five strikeouts in five innings -- retired Shaw, it became more likely that Murphy would stick with him on the mound versus turning to the bullpen.

Next came Happ’s plate appearance. Patrick had gotten Happ to look at strike three in the first inning and line out to first base in the second. In this third matchup between the two, Patrick started Happ with a cutter and a sinker away.

Both certainly could’ve gone for called strikes. Instead, home-plate umpire Scott Barry called them both balls -- and those calls may have changed the complexion of the inning.

“We go from a count that could be 0-2 to a count that's 2-0,” Patrick said. “It is what it is.”

Patrick entered the fifth at just 57 pitches. By the end of Happ’s walk, he’d still only thrown 65. With his pitch count still so low, Murphy felt it was a spot Patrick needed to find a way to work out of.

The problem was the next hitter was Tucker, who entered the day with a 149 wRC+ (100 is MLB average) and had already started 2-for-2. Tucker swung through an inside sinker for strike one, and then Patrick threw a 96.4 mph four-seamer up and in.

But Tucker didn’t miss this one, drilling it to the basically the same spot he did in his first-inning double.

“I went in on him twice,” Patrick said of that at-bat. “Sinker in, swing and miss. Four-seam at the hands, just beat me to it. … [Tucker] hit my cutter twice, and then I go ahead and execute two good pitches in, and he beats me.”

The wind blew out all night, and Murphy noted it might’ve helped carry Tucker’s ball to the wall. He felt it could’ve been caught on a normal night. On this night it wasn’t, though, and it gave the Cubs runners at second and third with one out down a run.

With the right-handed-hitting Suzuki coming up next, Murphy stuck with his right-hander on the mound. But it took only two pitches before Suzuki turned on Patrick’s sinker low and in, giving Chicago a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.

Murphy reiterated the low pitch count was a big factor in the decision to let Patrick stay in the game, even after the walk to Happ. He said doesn’t regret his decision. He didn’t second-guess it postgame.

Murphy felt Patrick competed well throughout his outing. He also felt it wasn’t a bad thing for the 26-year-old rookie pitcher to experience that situation in the fifth, despite the bad outcome.

It could be a good learning experience in the long run for Patrick, even though the decision ultimately went the wrong way for the Brewers.

“You got to look at the positives,” Patrick said. “Can't always be negative on yourself. Just take and learn from what I did today, and just be better.”