John Lackey after yet another Cubs loss: ‘We need to play better’

1:32 AM ET

ST. LOUIS — Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon refuses to believe his team is playing poorly, even after it dropped another game, this time to the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 on Monday. His players, however, are starting to express some exacerbation as the great start to their season is turning into a mediocre second month.

“It is frustrating a little bit,” second baseman Ben Zobrist said after the game. “It’s still so early. We weren’t thinking too high of ourselves. We know it’s a long season. We just have to get back to the grind again.”

For a while on Monday it looked like the Cubs would grind out a win. But their 3-1 lead evaporated when starter John Lackey threw his only bad pitch of the night, a curveball to pinch hitter Matt Adams, who hit a two-run home run to tie the game in the seventh inning.

“We have to worry about ourselves. They’re kind of irrelevant,” John Lackey said of the other NL Central teams. “If we play our game, we’ll be OK.” AP Photo/Michael Thomas

“When you’re playing tight, low-scoring games like that, one pitch can be the difference,” Lackey said. “It was tonight, for sure.”

It was actually two pitches that did the Cubs in, as Randal Grichuk took Adam Warren deep with two outs in …

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