Scripted comedy may be only explanation for Cubs’ sudden slump

The Cubs are a 70s sitcom gag come to life.

Someone is gardening in the yard, watering some plants maybe, and suddenly the water stops flowing because a car parked in the driveway on top of the hose.

Whose car is it? When will they move it?

Maybe the best way for the Cubs to end their offensive drought is with a splashdown home run into the Allegheny River, but that didn't happen Monday. A Michael Busch solo homer, which landed in the seats, was all the scoring in a 2-1 loss to Pittsburgh.

With their ninth straight defeat, the Cubs are on the verge of doing the unimaginable — two 10-game win streaks and a 10-game losing streak in the same season, all before June 1.

How exactly does a team go from a 20-3 surge straight into a 2-13 slump? There have been some injuries, but nothing to explain this. Strength of schedule is a bit of an issue, although Houston was 11 games below .500 before sweeping the Cubs at Wrigley over the weekend, so that doesn't add up either.

Some people are trying to popularize The Curse of the White Sox Wedding Party, based on the woman who taunted Pete Crow-Armstrong after he crashed into the wall at Rate Field. That game was loss No. 2 out of nine.

Be very careful when assigning curses to the Cubs, however. This is a franchise that spent 70 years trying to blame a billy goat for prolonged failure, when the actual culprit was a curse of terrible ownership.

Something a little more tangible, like the curse of investing in too many players on the downside of their careers — that would make more sense for this team.

Manager Craig Counsell tried shuffling the lineup, gave slumping hitters a day off, started rookie Pedro Ramirez two days in a row. It hasn't helped the bottom line.

“It is two weeks, I think that's an important thing to remember,” Counsell told reporters before Monday's game. “It gets magnified when there's a lot of guys going through it at the same time, and that's what's happened to us.”

The pitching and defense have had some lowlights, but this slump is 90% on the hitters. The Cubs are last in batting average and OPS since the losing trend began, and near the bottom in scoring and home runs.

Here are up-to-date batting averages since May 9, when this slump began in Texas: Ian Happ .094, Crow-Armstrong .100, Michael Conforto .118, Dansby Swanson .128, Seiya Suzuki .138, Nico Hoerner .156, Busch .172.

The silver lining Monday was Moises Ballesteros snapped a 1-for-36 stretch by going 2-for-2. The lone slump outliers are Alex Bregman (.274 since May 9) and arguably Carson Kelly (.257).

But the boring reality is just one-third of the season has passed. Cubs hitters will heat up again, maybe, probably. Ben Brown, Monday's starting pitcher, has been a bright spot. Jordan Wicks seemed to find his groove at Iowa and gets another chance in the majors Tuesday.

And Counsell tried to sell this sudden slump as the ultimate coaching challenge. It's possible he's right.

“If you're coaching, you should look forward to these moments,” Counsell said. “You shouldn't run away from moments like this. That's kind of why you coach. These are coaching opportunities all over the place.”