Zach Davies can’t get out of the 2nd inning of the Chicago Cubs’ 8-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates — the worst start of his 7-year career

Meghan Montemurro, Chicago Tribune
·4 min read
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Chicago Cubs right-hander Zach Davies’ game plan Saturday night was a formula that previously yielded good results.

For the second consecutive start, Davies faced the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he knew how he wanted to attack their hitters. Davies pounded pitches down and away in an effort to minimize hard contact. The Pirates didn’t bite, though, and adjusted their approach from a week ago. Davies couldn’t counter, resulting in a disastrous second inning.

The Pirates shelled Davies for seven runs in the second, too much for the Cubs offense to make up in an 8-2 loss. The Pirates knocked Davies out of the game with two outs in the second for the shortest start of his seven-year big-league career.

Right-hander Alec Mills entered in relief and eventually retired the Pirates, who sent 12 batters to the plate over a 26-minute span.

“Their approach was completely the opposite of that, where they were looking for something in that zone where I typically pitch,” Davies said. “They took advantage and they succeeded. That’s a credit to them.”

The Cubs got the start they wanted at PNC Park. Davies needed only nine pitches to get through a perfect first inning, and the offense stepped up to give him an early lead on Kris Bryant’s two-out RBI double.

That’s as good as it would get for Davies and the Cubs.

Saturday’s start represented the fourth time in 125 starts in which Davies allowed a career-high seven earned runs. It last occurred July 28, 2019, against the Cubs when he gave up seven runs in five innings for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Davies tends to work at the bottom of the zone, where his stuff can be effective. After getting a look at him last week, the Pirates combated that and Davies wasn’t able to make an in-game adjustment.

“That’s my game and that’s what I failed to do tonight,” Davies said. “It really got out of hand in the second, and that’s something as a starting pitcher that you can’t do, to put your team out of the game so much as I did. But that’s baseball. You’ve got to go back to the drawing board and you work.”

Davies uncharacteristically walked three Pirates in the second, compounding his problems. He had a chance to get out of the inning with only two runs across but couldn’t get the final out. He forced Pirates starter Mitch Keller to hit into a fielder’s choice for the second out; however, the next four batters reached base, driving in five more runs. Three of the Pirates’ four run-scoring hits came off Davies’ changeup.

“You’ve got to be locked in, especially when you’re a guy that relies on command and control and throwing all your pitches,” Cubs manager David Ross said. “You’ve got to get ahead and you’ve got to be able to execute. In that second inning he just wasn’t able to get ahead of many guys and was falling into some counts, and they were all over anything that was left in the zone, especially when it was soft.”

Davies plans to watch video of his start to study the Pirates’ tendencies and approaches against him. They were consistently able to take pitches around the zone and didn’t chase. Davies got them to swing and miss only twice, both with changeups.

Each starting pitcher faced the same team for a second consecutive start to open the season, which can create challenges. In these repeat matchups, a pitcher doesn’t want to go away from his strengths and what worked in the first start, Davies said. He has to recognize when to adjust, though, something Davies wasn’t able to do Saturday night.

“Sometimes you kind of do need a kick in the ass to go through your routine and work a lot harder,” Davies said. “I’m not saying that anybody, myself included, doesn’t work hard in between starts, but sometimes a game like this can kind of motivate you.”

Bryant’s two-out double in the first was his fourth double of the season — tied for second in the National League — in his 29th plate appearance. He hit five doubles in 147 plate appearances in 2020. The Cubs didn’t record another extra-base hit until Jason Heyward’s leadoff double in the ninth.