You don’t need a lip reader to know what Trent Thornton thought of his outing Wednesday.
The Cubs’ pitcher yelled “F–k” twice and angrily hurled his glove into the bench after exiting the 9-5 loss to the Brewers at Wrigley Field.
“He is upset on his way to that Cubs dugout,” Brewers announcer Brian Anderson said while the hot mic caught Thornton.
The odd thing about Thornton’s reaction is that he didn’t allow an earned run while pitching in relief of starter David Peterson in the third contest of this four-game set inside the Friendly Confines.
Thornton, 32, entered in the fourth inning with a man on third and two outs and stranded the runner to keep the Cubs’ deficit at 6-5.
He returned for the fifth and retired the leadoff batter before walking Joey Ortiz and then allowing two singles to load the bases with one out.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell then replaced him with Ryan Rolison and Thornton let it all out.
Rolison did the veteran a favor by inducing a fielder’s choice and a pop out to prevent an earned run from being charged to Thornton’s ledger and keep the Cubs within one run.
The Cubs (78-62) ultimately did not score again and the Brewers (87-53) tacked on three more runs to open up a nine-game lead in an NL Central race that suddenly seems over.
Making it all the more frustrating for the Cubs is that they scored five runs off NL Cy Young favorite Jacob Misiorowski but couldn’t hold an early two-run lead.
Thornton is in his first season with the Cubs and is 5-5 with a 3.40 ERA across 44 games.
Chicago is one game behind the Phillies for the top Wild Card spot in the NL.
