Almost as quickly as a brief, intense rain and hail storm struck the Lakeview neighborhood Tuesday afternoon, it vanished, leaving a rainbow shining over Wrigley Field just ahead of Adbert Alzolay’s first major-league start.
“There’s energy,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said before the game, talking about the effect of a touted rookie making a debut like that. “There’s absolute energy to be derived, but there’s also huge curiosity: ‘Let’s see if this is real or not.’ “
The right-hander showed promise again Tuesday in his first start, during a 3-2 loss to the Braves.
But the rainbow was long gone by the time Alzolay’s first pitch to Braves leadoff hitter Ronald Acuna Jr. cleared the leftfield wall in the first inning.
If the quick-strike homer fazed him, it didn’t show, as he retired 12 of the next 13 he faced in a lineup that ranks second in the National League in both scoring and OPS.
“It’s just one pitch,” said Alzolay, who eventually tired in a three-walk fifth inning and was pulled. “The game continues. If you lose your mind in that situation, then you’re not going to last a lot of innings in the game.”
He could have been talking about Tuesday, or his career.
Either way, the next step for the Cubs’ latest, brightest hope for ending a miserable pitching-development drought is murky as the Cubs evaluate over the next day or two whether Alzolay will start again next week in Pittsburgh.
“We’ll talk about it in the next couple days. We’ve got to be mindful of the bullpen,” said Maddon, who has recently signed closer Craig Kimbrel poised to join the roster by the end of the week.
“He did well; he just ran out of gas,” the manager said. “You can see how good he’s going to be.
The thing that I loved, even after the home run he came right back, `I’m fine.’ First-pitch homer, then he went up and got three really good hitters out. I like the mound demeanor. We’ve just got to get him further along in regards to being stretched out.
Alzolay, who also retired 12 of 13 in one stretch during a four-plus-inning debut out of the bullpen last week, threw 87 pitches Tuesday.
“I felt really good,” he said. “I just probably got a little tired at the end.”
Alzolay, 24, received a rousing ovation as left the mound after becoming only the fourth homegrown pitcher under team president Theo Epstein’s eighth-year regime to make a start.
Whether he pitches again Monday for the Cubs, or later in the week – or whether he’s the pitcher who gets optioned to make room for Kimbrel – Alzolay has earned another shot by all accounts.
Even the modest 4 2/3 innings he pitched represented the longest of five total starts made by homegrown pitchers acquired and developed by the Cubs under Epstein.
Two of the three other pitchers to make those starts – Rob Zastryzny and Jen-Ho Tseng (two starts) – are out of the organization.
Alzolay has a long way to go before establishing a lasting place in the majors, especially after being hampered this season and last season by separate lat injuries.
But he has allowed only two hits in 8 2/3 combined innings in his two games – both solo homers for the only runs allowed. And Tuesday’s opponent wasn’t exactly the Mets.
“He could be really good in the big leagues,” catcher Willson Contreras said. “He still needs to make adjustments, like all of us. But with the confidence he has, the intensity he has and the way he prepares before the games, it’s going to take him a long way.”
Compared to his first outing, “this one was just calm,” Alzolay said, “like another game, enjoying the moment.”
Like he knows he belongs in the big leagues.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “For sure.”
Hit charade?
While the Cubs deliberate on what comes next with Alzolay, they’ll also continue their two-month search for base hits with men in scoring position after another 1-for-6 effort left them a run short Tuesday
Ozzie Albies eventually provided the game-winning margin with a two-run homer off Montgomery in the seventh.
“But actually both of them pitched well,” Maddon said. “We just have to be more offensive.”
They put the first two men on base in the eighth for Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, but Bryant grounded into a 5-3 double play, and Rizzo struck out to end the threat with the potential tying run stranded at second
After beating the Braves 8-3 in Monday’s heated opener of the four-game series, the Cubs led 2-1 in this one after Monday combatant Contreras delivered a two-run double into the left-field corner off Braves starter Max Fried.
Contreras leads the team with a .351 average with men in scoring position, with 31 RBIs.
After a flat series against the moribund Mets over the weekend, Maddon said he liked the way the Cubs responded at the plate Monday following the dustup between catchers Contreras and Tyler Flowers.
After Contreras hit his homer during that flap, the Cubs went on to add seven more runs on two walks, six singles, a pair of doubles and just one more homer.
“I don’t know how much that had to do with it, but I want to believe we don’t need to have an awkward moment occur every night in order to play good baseball,” he said. “I want to believe we’re able to motivate ourselves.”
“It’s something we’ve been talking about internally a bit. It’s up to us,” he said.
