With offense quiet as home losing streak reaches 8, concern grows: Did Cubs get it all wrong?
Craig Counsell had a message for everyone waiting for the Cubs to show some life on offense, and it's especially relevant to impatient fans.
“It's one of the challenging things about our game is sometimes you do have to wait for things to happen,” Counsell said before Wednesday's game at Wrigley Field. “As much as you want to put your finger down and say, 'Change it' — the game makes you wait. Makes you sit in discomfort for a little while, tests you.”
This wait is getting rough. The Cubs hit their way to an early lead Wednesday, then lost to the Athletics 5-4 in 10 innings. Their home losing streak stretched to eight in a row.
The early innings produced some offensive bursts. Seiya Suzuki and Pete Crow-Armstrong hit home runs. Ian Happ doubled for his 1,000th career hit in fourth inning
A couple of A's outfield misplays helped the cause. Left-fielder Tyler Soderstrom misjudged Nico Hoerner's line drive and let it sail over his head for a double, just before PCA's home run in the third inning. Then right fielder Carlos Cortes missed a diving attempt at Michael Busch's sinking line drive. It rolled to the wall for a triple, while Happ scored from second to make it 4-2 in the fourth.
Reliever Caleb Thielbar gave up the 2-run lead by allowing 2 runs in the eighth. The A's scored once in the 10th, and the top of the Cubs order couldn't bring in the tying run from second. The game ended with a Hoerner flyout, PCA strikeout and Alex Bregman flyout.
Counsell's solution to the waiting game is for players to simply keep practicing the habits and work ethic that made them successful in the first place. Then you hope things turn around, eventually, before it's too late.
Now, the Cubs could go on another 20-3 run and everything turns out fine. Such a repeat is possible. But as long as the offense is slumping, there will be concerns the Cubs went about this all wrong.
Conventional wisdom in MLB these days is slug equals wins. The best teams typically have multiple hitters among the OPS and home run leaders. Land one of those big sticks and it lifts the entire lineup.
The Cubs tried that last year by trading for Kyle Tucker and it worked like a charm, until roughly the all-star break. At last season's midsummer siesta, the Cubs had four players among the top 23 in OPS.
Tucker moved on to the Dodgers, of course, and the Cubs didn't replace him. Maybe they tried to replace him with Bregman, but he's probably been more of a beneficiary of big sticks surrounding him in the lineup, not a big stick himself. Anyway, the Cubs' OPS leader heading into Wednesday's action was Ian Happ, who ranked 50th in MLB.
The team on the other side of town did find a top-five OPS hammer in Munetaka Murakami, and that's a huge reason why the White Sox had a better record than the Cubs by the end of the day.
If this Cubs lineup doesn't pan out, well, they've already committed to four more years of Bregman and three of Dansby Swanson. In other words, this pending problem has no easy solution. Maybe Single-A sensation Josiah Hartshorn will keep making rapid progress and reach Wrigley Field in a couple years.
As it stands, this Cubs team is missing the big bat. Counsell also talked about Bregman being a “baseball rat,” but that's not helping the bottom line right now.
“Alex is a baseball rat,” Counsell said. “He can't wait for the next day to come. Even if he's having a bad game, he's upset the game's over, he'd like to keep playing. That's just who he is. That's a great trait and I think everybody feels it.”
The Cubs needed this game to continue, but like everything else the past few weeks, it didn't pan out as planned.