Strikeout bug continues to affect Cubs

MILWAUKEE — While most people thought pitching would be the Cubs' biggest problem after the July 31 trading deadline, they're striking out offensively.

They're striking out literally.

They're striking out figuratively.

And they're striking out quite often.

Cubs hitters came up with nothing but air 13 times Wednesday in a 3-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park.

That was 1 strikeout more than the dozen they managed in each of the first two games of this series, in which they were swept.

Over their past six games, Cubs batters have struck out 66 times. It was 71 on the seven-game road trip to Cincinnati and Milwaukee.

“Like we talked about earlier, we got to start grinding at-bats and learning how to foul balls off and get to another count, get to another pitch,” said manager Dale Sveum, whose team is 4-18 beginning July 31 and 47-76 for the season. “There's just too many uncontested strikeouts where we're not battling and fouling balls off. We've got to get much better at that.”

Strikeouts are only part of the problem, and they're probably the least of the Cubs' woes at the plate.

A pregame check of National League statistics showed the Cubs ranked last in the NL in runs scored, hits, walks and on-base percentage.

Part of it is youth, no doubt. But the Cubs' new management team has its work cut out changing an organization-wide and organization-deep culture of impatience at the plate.

Change will come, but it's likely to come slowly.

“It's very difficult to do it with youth because that comes with at-bats and all that,” Sveum said. “But there's obviously some issues that we've got to address and get better at getting on base and seeing pitches and working the count, because if you're not doing that and you're not throwing out slugging percentage, you go through nights like last night, where you're just not going to score runs,” he said of Tuesday's 5-2 loss.

“It's just too difficult to string something together if you're not mixing in walks and if you're not getting into the middle of people's bullpens.”

The Cubs got all their production Wednesday from two of their more patient hitters. David DeJesus led off the game with his sixth home run. He's been fine most of the year in having good at-bats.

The other run came in the seventh, when Bryan LaHair hit his 15th homer and his first since the Fourth of July. LaHair, however, rarely plays anymore after losing his first-base job to Anthony Rizzo and then tailing off at the plate.

Still, he tries to keep the same approach that made him an all-star.

“I feel like I grind out most at-bats; I still see a ton of pitches,” he said. “Very rarely do I ever go up and come right back. I continue to do that. Usually that brings a lot of success. Obviously, it hasn't of late. But I know it will, and I'll just continue doing what I do.

“You go up and you swing at everything, you're not going to have much success. It's usually the other way around: When you're seeing a lot of pitches, you have a lot of success. Battling tough pitches to get that next pitch is key to grinding an at-bat. You get that pitch or two, you want to do something with it.”

A lot of factors in addition to youth figure into this equation. Mental approach is one. And the type of hitters the Cubs have is another.

“It's a combination of a lot of things,” Sveum said. “We're going down looking. We're swinging at pitches way out of the zone early, and then we get pitches to hit, and we take them.

“What's going on right now mentally is kind of strange on a hitting point. We're aggressive when we shouldn't be, and we're passive when we should be aggressive. It's sort of a strange thing that's going on.”

The way for this to change will be for the Cubs to draft the kind of hitters who have good at-bats and acquire veterans via trades and free agency who do the same thing.

“We've got to address all these problems in the winter to produce runs,” Sveum said. “The process of just grinding at-bats out has got to get better. We're not grinding at-bats out. We're really passive (at) hitting right now. It's like we're afraid to make mistakes, and that's what you're going to do. You can't be afraid to fail at this level, and it looks like that's what we're kind of going through right now.”