Tyler O'Neill got things going early, popping a solo homer to open the scoring, but this one turned into a slow-burn collapse for the Cubs bullpen rather than a laugher. Chicago had already banked the series win before the last game even started, which made what happened late in this one even harder to swallow for their fans.
A tied ballgame in the 8th, moments before Baltimore found its go-ahead run.
That clip catches the game locked at 2-2 in the top of the 8th, right before things swung Baltimore's way. Jeremiah Jackson's two-run double in the bottom of that inning put the Orioles on top for good, turning a tight, winnable game for Chicago into a 3-2 gut-punch. It's the kind of late-inning bullpen unraveling that Cubs fans have seen too often this year, and it happened on a night when the series was already decided.
As if the bullpen implosion wasn't enough, a disputed call at second base added fuel to the fire. Nico Hoerner appeared to get tagged out oversliding the bag, but replays suggested Gunnar Henderson may have had his foot blocking the base before he actually had control of the ball — the kind of borderline ruling that becomes a talking point for weeks when it swings a one-run game.
Brutal loss. Had ‘em and the bullpen blew it in the 8th. The Nico out call at 2nd was tough too. Good series win but left some meat on the bone.
That's the whole story in a nutshell: a series Chicago had already locked up, undone in the details of one game. It's not the first time O'Neill has torched the Cubs this week either — he'd already gone deep twice in an earlier game in this same set, a slugfest Chicago actually won 9-7. So there's a real tug-of-war happening here: the Cubs' offense has been doing damage, but their bullpen keeps giving big chunks of it right back.
Net result: Cubs walk away with the series, Orioles avoid the sweep and get to feel good about a ninth-inning stand that could've gone either way with a different call at second. For Baltimore, it's a moral-victory type of finish in a series they were otherwise overmatched in. For Chicago, it's a series win that comes with an asterisk — banked early, nearly squandered late, and now a bullpen question that isn't going away.