This edition of “Three up, three down” is running on Tuesday rather than its usual Monday slot due to Monday’s Memorial Day holiday. The games included here are last week’s six-game road trip. Monday’s game against the Rockies will be included in next week’s edition.

The Cubs’ 4-2 road trip was definitely a success, although I wouldn’t recommend falling way behind until the sixth inning on a regular basis. Through Sunday, as you likely know, the Cubs had outscored opponents 53-3 from the sixth inning on in their previous nine games. That’s… really impressive, but it would also be good to just take leads and keep them.

Here’s who’s hot and not for the Cubs from last week’s road trip.

Three up
King Tuck is heating up again

After a bit of a slow period, Kyle Tucker had an excellent road trip in Miami and Cincinnati. Over the six games, Tucker batted .385/.448/.615 (10-for-26) with two home runs. He also stole two bases and now has 15 for the year without being caught.

Here’s his homer in Miami last Wednesday [VIDEO].

Matt Shaw’s return from Triple-A was a big success

On the road trip, his first six games back in the big leagues after his month at Iowa, Shaw batted .360/.385/.560 (9-for-25) with five doubles and two stolen bases.

He also made some nice plays at third base, including this one last Friday in Cincinnati [VIDEO].

The bullpen allowed only four runs on the entire road trip

That’s four runs in 22⅓ innings, or an ERA of 1.61. And two of those four runs were allowed by Julian Merryweather, who was DFA after his outing Friday in Cincinnati.

The other two runs were served up by Daniel Palencia in the walkoff loss in Miami last Tuesday. Palencia righted his ship with three scoreless appearances after that, posting a save in each one. In those three games, Palencia faced 10 batters and allowed one baserunner.

In those 22⅓ innings, Cubs relievers walked eight and struck out 16.

Three down
Ben Brown continues to struggle

Josh covered Brown in After Dark earlier today, but I wanted to note here that Brown’s two starts on the trip were both pretty bad. In nine total innings vs. the Marlins and Reds, Brown allowed 14 hits and two walks (1.778 WHIP) and 14 earned runs for a 9.00 ERA.

He’ll face the Reds again this week, likely on Saturday, unless the Cubs decide to change things up.

Brown has talent, no question, but he needs especially to harness command of his fastball. His walk rate isn’t too bad (7.7 percent), but often he runs long counts which result in him having to be taken out of games early.

Here’s hoping for better from Brown.

Ian Happ hasn’t hit much since coming back from injury

Happ spent the minimum 10 days on the injured list with an oblique injury. Since his return he’s batted just .154/.241/.154 (4-for-26, all singles). Now, it’s true that Happ has often gone into slumps like this and come out of them with tremendous hot streaks, so I hope the latter is coming soon. But I have to wonder if the oblique might still be bothering him, a bit.

Colin Rea had a rough start in Cincinnati

You know, I had to really look hard to find a third player to put in “three down.” Almost everyone on the team at least had a decent week. Rea threw five innings Saturday and allowed six runs in the only game the Cubs lost in the series in Cincinnati. Even at that, he struck out eight [VIDEO].

Rea has made eight starts and three relief appearances this year and Saturday was the only really bad one. I have confidence he’ll right the ship. As is the case for Brown, Rea will face the Reds again this coming weekend, likely Friday. FWIW, Rea has a much better ERA in home games this year (2.50 in 28⅔ innings) than on the road (4.50 ERA in 18 innings). Small sample size, of course.

Poll
The Cubs have five games remaining on the current homestand. How many will they win?