Cubs 5, Padres 4: Lockett has one very bad inning

Poor Walker Lockett. In his spot start today, he had one extremely bad inning that saddled him with a loss. Four scoreless innings just don’t look that good when you allowed five runs in your other inning. The offense tried their best to get him off the hook, putting up a decent four runs over the course of the afternoon, but Lockett dug a hole too deep to climb out of.

The second inning started poorly. After Kyle Schwarber worked a full count to start the frame, Lockett served him a high fastball that immediately left the yard. Ian Happ followed that up with a single, and moved into scoring position on a Wilson Contreras ground out. And Lockett looked like he wasn’t going to allow any more runs when he struck out Kyle Hendricks. But Addison Russell kept the Cubs’ rally going with a single to plate Happ, and an Anthony Rizzo bomb put Chicago up 4-0. Ben Zobrist piled on with a double, and scored the fifth and final run of the inning on Jason Heyward’s single.

The Friars at least didn’t play like the game was over. Travis Jankowski led off the fourth with an infield single, and he took second when Hendricks missed the throw to first. Manuel Margot hit a ground-rule double to end the shutout, and a couple productive outs brought him around to score. Austin Hedges really made it a game again with a solo shot to left.

A small rally in the sixth brought the Pads within one. Eric Hosmer started it with a one-out single, and Hunter Renfroe put runners on second and third when he doubled to left. Hedges helped out once again with a sacrifice fly that brought Hosmer home, but Freddy Galvis couldn’t bring Renfroe in from third to tie the game. Three perfect innings of Cubs relief later, the game was over.

The Padres can still split the series with a win tomorrow. Joey Lucchesi will take on Jon Lester at 11:20 AM.