Cardinals will try to keep Cubs in their recent funk
Joe Maddon remains baseball's ultimate optimist and refuses to pander to those worrying about the Chicago Cubs' long-term success during their slump.
The latest defeat -- a game the Cubs shouldn't have lost -- has them enduring their first three-game losing streak and might give Maddon more reason to be concerned.
Jason Hammel gave the St. Louis Cardinals fits last month and will take the mound Tuesday night at Busch Stadium looking to help Chicago get back on track.
The Cubs (29-14) still have baseball's best record despite dropping six of eight, and part of Maddon's reason for maintaining positivity is that they've been outscored by only one run in that stretch.
Chicago has scored more than three runs only once during that span but held a two-run lead heading into the seventh of Monday's series opener. Pinch-hitter Matt Adam's tied it with a homer that inning before Randal Grichuk went deep in the bottom of the ninth to give St. Louis (24-21) a 4-3 victory.
"We knew there was going to be lows and we got hot at the beginning and now we've gotten cold the last couple of weeks," said Ben Zobrist, who had three hits and extended his streak of reaching base safely to 29 starts. "So we got to find the middle ground and get back to playing good baseball."
Hammel (5-1, 2.31 ERA) has been mostly solid but is coming off a rough outing Thursday. He gave up four runs, including a pair of homers, in six innings of a 5-3 loss to Milwaukee. He had allowed only one home run over his first seven starts combined.
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"I felt pretty good," Hammel said. "Home runs on hanging sliders; hanging sliders leave the yard. That's about it."
The right-hander didn't have much trouble against St. Louis on April 19, allowing one run and striking out six in six innings of a 2-1 victory. Hammel is 2-0 with a 2.77 ERA in his last three regular-season starts against the Cardinals after posting a 6.57 mark in his first five against them.
Michael Wacha missed facing the Cubs in the first series at Busch Stadium last month, and it might be a good thing he did. Wacha is 0-3 with an 8.84 ERA in his last four outings in the rivalry, including allowing four runs in 4 1/3 innings of an 8-6 loss in Game 3 of last year's NL Division Series.
Wacha (2-4, 4.03) has been equally bad in his last three overall and posted a 7.71 ERA while lasting just four innings in each of his previous two. He gave up six runs -- four were unearned -- in a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 13 before giving up six again and getting a no-decision in a 13-7 win over Colorado on Thursday.
"First couple innings, I felt good. I was hitting my spots, keeping the ball on the corner and down in the zone," Wacha said after his last outing. "Then that fourth inning got away from me a little bit with the leadoff walk and leaving balls over the plate."
Anthony Rizzo is hitting .455 with two homers in their regular-season matchups, and Kris Bryant and Jorge Soler also have gone deep off Wacha, who will try to help the Cardinals win for the fifth time in seven games.
St. Louis is averaging 6.4 runs over its last five games.
"This is a team that can do damage in a hurry," manager Mike Matheny said. "That's something we haven't had in the past as much, the ability for quite a few guys in that lineup that feel good about getting the ball over the fence and create instant offense."
