He got groundball singled to death, and even one groundball double. He wasn't top notch in terms of swings and misses, but overall it was a good start where it matters. Some batted ball luck and his line would look a lot better.
This is confirmation bias at its finest. Stroman and Happ have continued to be awesome, Liriano has been inconsistent in limited time, Sanchez hasn't been quite as good but that's probably regression, and Dickey is Dickey.
I absolutely love Joe Maddon's/the Cubs' strategy of making every player as versatile as possible. It tries to fix the issue of prospects being blocked at some position because an established MLB player is there instead. Of course, not everyone can do it, but to have a guy like Kris Bryant being able to play multiple defensive positions at a high level is just so incredibly useful that it warrants praise. Ben Zobrists all over the field!
I don't believe there's anything wrong with him doing that as long as he doesn't do it after coming to a set position. The only question was whether the balk was called before or during the time out call, and clearly it was the latter. The home plate ump handled it fine, the only thing to get mad about would be the two outside pitches that were called strikes.