David Ross and the Cubs wanted to buck a trend.

Since 2017, the Cubs have won just one road series against California teams and are 11-20 in that span against California teams.

“The goal here is to change that history, right? You wanna win em all,” Ross said. “I think that’s something that in my experiences as a player, every team, good or bad, when you travel from East to West it just always seems to be one of those trips that it’s a difficult trip.”

The problems continued for the Cubs, as they dropped their second straight game to the Giants 8-5. There’s plenty of challenges for teams when they make the trek out west.

“I think whether it’s time change, jet lag, any of those excuses that you wanna throw out there I just know historically in my career, it’s been a difficult road trip when you come out here on the West Coast,” Ross said. “I don’t know that there’s anything that I can put my finger on to say this is why or else we would try to change that or combat that in some way.”

Friday night, the woes stemmed from the Giants’ bats getting to Jake Arrieta, who battled a stomach bug on Friday. Arrieta allowed 6 runs on 6 hits in 2 innings of work. Arrieta allowed a pair of home runs in the 6^th inning where the Giants brought 10 hitters to the plate. He revealed post game that something he ate upset his stomach and he tried to battle through it.

“Apparently what I had for lunch today made me pretty sick,” Arrieta said. “Threw up before the game and then a few times after I came out of the game. I was really weak. Tried to go out there and do what I could. Wasn’t able to, unfortunately. Put us in a big hole.”

But Arrieta wasn’t going to sit out his start.

“I wasn’t going to do that,” Arrieta said. “I thought I was capable of going out there and doing a little bit more. Didn’t really have my legs underneath me. Not a great day.” 

It erased a strong start for the Cubs. After Willson Contreras led the game off with a single, Kris Bryant took the third pitch of the game to left field to give the Cubs a 2-0 lead.

The Cubs continued to rally, with Joc Pederson hitting his second home run in as many days, a 2-run shot in the 4^th inning that made it 6-4. The Giants would add on a pair of runs in the bottom half of the winning to extend their lead and the Cubs could not rally.

Full capacity Wrigley Field

The Cubs announced Friday afternoon that Wrigley Field had been approved to host 100% capacity starting with the Cubs’ next home game, June 11 against the Cardinals.

The 60% capacity crowd has made its presence felt, which has Ross excited about a full house when they return to Chicago next week.

“I think it’s felt like 100, so I can’t imagine what 100 is actually gonna sound like and feel like. Super excited about that,” Ross said. “I’m excited to hear the sold-out crowd, standing on their feet and hopefully singing ‘Go Cubs, Go.’ at the end of the night.”

Injury updates

Jason Heyward and Jake Marisnick both started and played with Iowa Wednesday and Thursday, but the duo joined the Cubs in San Francisco on Friday. They had the day off and their return to the big-league club seems imminent.

Trevor Williams, who is on the 10-day injured list after having an appendectomy, is with the club, but his return isn’t as close as Marisnick or Heyward’s.

“No timeline for him or anything,” Ross said. “But his words to me were, ‘It’s still not there.’ That’s what he told me that the appendix was gone.”