CHICAGO -- Daniel Palencia was visibly frustrated as he crouched on the mound, slamming his left hand into the dirt.
Just a few moments prior, Palencia released a 100.4 mph four-seamer that ended up way inside on Nationals first baseman Andrés Chaparro. He grimaced as he finished his motion, then hunched over with his back facing the plate and let his glove hit the ground.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell and a team trainer met with Palencia behind the mound, and following a short conversation, they walked off the field together. Just like that, in the top of the ninth in their 6-3 loss to the Nationals on Sunday at Wrigley Field, they were down a closer.
“Danny felt some tightness in his posterior right shoulder,” Counsell said. “Docs have looked at him. That's all we have right now. Probably let him just kind of calm down a little bit and see how we are in a couple days, a day or so.”
There was a “very small” issue similar to this for Palencia “maybe a couple months ago,” according to Counsell. However, that only lasted for a day, and “he's been good ever since.” As far as Counsell knew while sitting at the podium during the postgame press conference, the injury happened on that pitch, and the frustration was clear.
That frustration was likely two-fold for Palencia. Not only did he feel an ailment that would cause him to leave the game, but he had just recorded his third blown save of the season.
With Chicago entering the ninth up 3-1, it turned to Palencia. However, the 25-year-old flamethrower couldn’t record an out.
He gave up a leadoff solo shot to Washington center fielder Robert Hassell III that cut the lead to one. Then, after a single and a walk, pinch-hitter Josh Bell took Palencia deep to center field, turning a one-run lead into a two-run deficit.
Palencia then gave up a triple to left fielder Daylen Lile (who later came around to score) before leaving the game, and the Cubs couldn’t respond with a rally of their own in the bottom of the ninth as they took the loss to drop the three-game series.
“He left some pitches over kind of the good part of the plate, and they took some good swings,” Counsell said. “Simple as that.”
Palencia has had some struggles over the last month, and Sunday was the latest example.
After a save on Aug. 1, he’d gotten down to a 1.36 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP on the season while hitters had hit just .174 off of him. In the 14 games since then, though, those numbers have been 8.74, 2.21 and .377, respectively, ballooning his season numbers to 3.00, 1.18 and .230.
That had only manifested in one blown save since Aug. 1, making him 22-for-24 in save opportunities entering Sunday. But there were still fewer clean innings than he’d had for the majority of his time as closer.
As for what went wrong Sunday, Carson Kelly credited misses lower in the zone.
The two homers and the triple all came against lefties on pitches Palencia left far too close to the middle part of the plate. In comparison, during his appearance Saturday, he pumped some triple-digit fastballs near the top of the zone. That helped him produce a clean 13-pitch frame with two punchouts.
When Palencia couldn’t keep his fastball up Sunday, the Nationals made him pay.
“When he's got his heater up in the zone, it plays really well,” Kelly added. “We were missing down a little bit. It's the big leagues. They put good swings on it, and it just turned on us today.”
Palencia got his first save opportunity of the season May 19, and he soon took over as closer after Ryan Pressly got removed from the role and Porter Hodge went on the injured list. For most of the season, he’d thrived in a role not often given to that young of an arm.
“For a young guy coming in and handling those late innings, it's really important,” Kelly said. “He's been great for us all year.”
It’s unclear how much time Palencia could miss due to the injury, but the Cubs will need a different ninth-inning plan in his potential absence. Counsell, though, wasn’t ready to think about that immediately after Sunday's game.
“We'll regroup on that,” he said. “That's not as important as figuring out what's going on with Danny right now. We got to get 27 outs, and we'll figure out how to get 27 outs. If it's without Danny, it'll look a little different.”