Six days after Matt Wisler gave up three homers and lasted four innings in a one-sided Braves loss at Dodger Stadium, the young pitcher endured a similar experience Saturday at Turner Field.
With Jake Arrieta on the mound for the visiting Chicago Cubs, it was a particularly bad day for that to happen.
Jason Heyward homered in the first inning, and Anthony Rizzo and Miguel Montero homered off Wisler in a four-run fourth that propelled the Cubs to an 8-2 win, evening the series at a game apiece. This pleased many thousands of Cubs jersey-wearing fans in a crowd of 43,114.
The Braves trailed 5-0 before the bottom of the fourth against Arrieta (10-1), who hasn’t allowed more than four runs in a game in nearly 13 months.
“It’s like an uphill battle anyway, and it’s really an uphill battle when you get behind a guy like that,” Braves interim manager Brian Snitker said. “We hung in there, we battled. But God almighty, there’s no mistake why he does what he does. He’s a horse.”
Arrieta gave up two runs and four hits in seven innings, with two walks and a season-low three strikeouts, and also chipped in two of the Cubs’ 13 hits. The bearded right-hander improved to an astounding 26-2 with a 1.23 ERA in his past 33 starts, and the Cubs won for the 24th time in his past 26 starts.
“He’s a great pitcher,” said Braves center fielder Ender Inciarte, who had a two-out RBI triple in the seventh inning. “We tried to stay in the game by scoring a few runs, but when that guy gets on his rhythm, it’s going to be tough to get him. The way we’ve been playing lately, we’re never giving up, we’re playing hard. Hopefully we’re going to go out there tomorrow and compete and win the series.”
Wisler (2-7) was charged with seven hits, five runs and three homers in four innings and had two strikeouts. In his past two starts he’s given up 16 hits, 13 runs and six homers in eight innings.
In two career starts against the Cubs, Wisler has allowed 13 hits, 12 runs and seven homers in 6 2/3 innings.
“They’re the best team in baseball,” Wisler said. “They have a great offense. You definitely have to execute pitches. I just didn’t do a very good job of that tonight.”
Kris Bryant added a two-run, line-drive homer in the fifth inning against reliever Eric O’Flaherty as the Cubs opened a 7-1 lead. It marked the 11th time in Arrieta’s 13 starts that the Cubs scored six or more runs while their ace was in the game.
Yes, one of the game’s two best starting pitchers over the past two seasons also has the majors’ best run support, with the Cubs supplying 8.21 runs per nine innings pitched by Arrieta before Saturday. By contrast, Wisler came in with the majors’ second-lowest support at 2.49 runs per nine innings pitched.
It would’ve taken Arrieta-type run support to help keep Wisler afloat in his past two starts. On Sunday in Los Angeles, he gave up nine hits, eight runs, three homers and three walks in four innings.
These two rough June starts came on the heels of the best statistical month of Wisler’s brief career — he had a 2.51 ERA and .206 opponents’ average in six May starts.
“I’ve got to find a way to keep the ball in the ballpark right now,” Wisler said. “I’ve got to do a better job of executing pitches. The ones that hang they’re getting to, and they’re hitting them out of the park. So I’ve got to find a way to get the ball back down in the zone and execute my off-speed pitches the way they’re supposed to.”
Wisler worked out of a tight spot in the third inning, when the Cubs had runners at second and third with none out after two singles and a wild pitch. Facing the top of the order, he retired Dexter Fowler on a grounder to first base, then struck out Heyward before Bryant flied out, keeping the deficit at 1-0.
“When we got out of that (runners on) second and third, nobody out (jam), I’m thinking, you never know, things might happen good,” Snitker said. “Then it kind of got away from us a little bit, and a little bit is a whole lot with him. We found that out.
But in the fourth there was immediate trouble, and no working around it for Wisler. He gave up a first-pitch homer to Rizzo on a 93-mph fastball to start the inning. Ben Zobrist and Chris Coghlan followed with consecutive singles before Montero homered on a 1-2 slider, a three-run shot for a 5-0 lead.
