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<\/p>\nST. LOUIS \u2014 When the St. Louis Cardinals scored a pair of runs in the fifth inning to go up 3-0, it felt as if the game was over. For an offense that still ranks near the top of baseball in many categories, there\u2019s currently little trust that this group can generate consistent offensive momentum.<\/p>\n
Unlike Monday and Tuesday\u2019s losses against the Cincinnati Reds, the Cubs actually put some pressure on the Cardinals in Friday night\u2019s 5-0 loss. But what\u2019s dogged them lately is their continued inability to come up with the big hit. That stung them again on Friday, as they went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we swung the bats bad enough to get shut out,\u201d manager Craig Counsell said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get a hit with runners in scoring position. A lot of traffic and some hard-hit balls in that traffic. But right at \u2018em, so we end up at zero.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second inning, with runners on first and second, Dansby Swanson hit a 101.9 mph line drive to right for an out. In the fourth, with a runner on third and one down, Carson Kelly ripped a 101.9 mph one-hopper to third. Thomas Saggese fielded it cleanly and easily got Ian Happ at home. In the fifth, the first two runners got on and turned it over to the top of the lineup. Michael Busch struck out and Seiya Suzuki popped out. Then Kyle Tucker took a good rip, but the ball was caught to end the inning. With two on and two outs in the eighth, Kelly ripped a liner at 107.5 mph, again for an out.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hit the ball hard,\u201d Counsell said. \u201cThat\u2019s basically all you can do. Carson hit two balls with runners in scoring position. I thought Tuck took a really good swing with men in scoring position. That\u2019s all our hitters can control is hitting the ball hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cubs hit eight balls over 100 mph, but only two fell for hits. That\u2019s baseball. The bounces aren\u2019t always going to go your way. In those moments, an offense needs to keep applying pressure and trust that the big hit will eventually come. Lately, though, that moment hasn\u2019t arrived often enough for the Cubs.<\/p>\n
In fact, this offensive downturn with runners in scoring position has now lasted more than two months. Through June 3, the Cubs had a 144 wRC+ in those situations, second-best in baseball. Since then, they\u2019ve posted an 85 wRC+, which ranks 28th. Their BABIP (batting average on balls in play) has plummeted from .339 (tied for first) to .254 (29th). And that\u2019s before Friday\u2019s 0-for-6.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s baseball,\u201d team president Jed Hoyer said earlier this week. \u201cWhat we were doing for the first two months, while unbelievably fun, I think at some level you kind of knew that wasn\u2019t sustainable. You look at the underlying numbers and were were going to have some regression.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not striking out at a high rate in those moments. And while they haven\u2019t been elite in hard contact, they\u2019ve actually made harder contact in June and July than in April and May. The issue? That hard contact is too often ending up on the ground. Their ground ball rate has jumped from 39.2 percent through June 3 to 43 percent since. That\u2019s a significant leap and does account for some of their struggles.<\/p>\n
Hoyer believes it\u2019s going to turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually think now we\u2019re due for the opposite,\u201d Hoyer said. \u201cYou look at our numbers the last nine weeks or so, we\u2019re due for some of these guys to get out of their slumps. I try to be pretty balanced about it. You have to look at it on both sides. We were never going to continue hitting like we did in the first two months, and we\u2019re a better offensive team than we\u2019ve shown recently. That\u2019s the nature of a long season.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when a team is going through it, it\u2019s hard to believe things will turn. It\u2019s the uncertainty of it all that leaves one feeling tenuous about the Cubs\u2019 situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know when a hot streak ends, and you never know when a cold streak begins,\u201d Hoyer said. \u201cYou look at it and you think, \u2018I know we\u2019ll snap out of this. I know we\u2019ll start hitting well.\u2019 I don\u2019t know when. It\u2019s impossible to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ian Happ, right, is tagged out at home by St. Louis Cardinals catcher Pedro Pag\u00e9s in the fourth inning of the Cubs\u2019 5-0 loss. (Jeff Roberson \/ AP Photo)<\/p>\n
Yes, the talent is there. So is the recent history. Everyone has seen what this group is capable of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what we can do as an offense,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cWe\u2019re going through it right now. We\u2019re just going to continue putting good at-bats together. Hitting\u2019s contagious, I\u2019ve said it before, both sides. All it takes is one of those flares or one of those hard-hit balls to get down and something special can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what\u2019s happened lately, along with the memory of two months of terrible offense in 2024, brings some pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, you think back on that,\u201d Hoyer said of the rough offensive patch in May and June of 2024. \u201cThat was such a struggle situationally. No team has figured that out. You\u2019re not going to go six months and dominate with runners in scoring position. I do feel like we have some positive regression coming on that end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoyer has to believe that. It\u2019s how the game works after all. When a team is going through a slump, it just feels like it will never end. The reality is, this offensive slump is nothing like last year\u2019s issues. In May and June of 2024, the Cubs ranked 26th and 27th, respectively, in runs scored with a combined record of 21-34. In June and July of this season, they were 15th and 11th, respectively, with a combined record of 27-23. With as bad as it has felt at times in August, they\u2019re only at 3-4 in the first week of the month.<\/p>\n
The problem is that while the Cubs have been through a mediocre stretch of play for more than two months, the Milwaukee Brewers have played their two best months ever. That\u2019s not hyperbole. They\u2019re on a 46-16 run, have currently won seven in a row and have extended their division lead to five games.<\/p>\n
The Cubs are securely in the playoffs right now and are battling for the second-best record in baseball. But the best and hottest team in baseball just happens to be in their division. That puts all the more pressure on them to pull themselves up from their current depths and get back on track, particularly on the offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we got the best lineup in baseball,\u201d Matthew Boyd said. \u201cThrough 162 games, stretches of all sorts of things will pop up. We know who we are as a ballclub. We know what we can do and what we\u2019re capable of. We\u2019re one of the best teams in the National League. Stuff happens. The best part about baseball, like Ryne Sandberg would say, is you get to show up tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Top photo of Seiya Suzuki: Jeff Roberson \/ AP Photo)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 When the St. Louis Cardinals scored a pair of runs in the fifth inning to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1271,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-132534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-chicago-cubs","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115000573404993523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}