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Where has this season gone wrong for the Cubs? Starting pitching is a good place to start

Where has this season gone wrong for the Cubs?

Maybe in too many ways to count, but starting pitching is a good place to start.

Heading into Wednesday's action, the Cubs ranked 26th in MLB starter ERA at 4.86. This has turned into a repeat of last year's campaign, when injuries and uneven performances from the starters eventually weakened a once-strong bullpen.

Left-hander Justin Steele took the lead in games started for the Cubs, getting No. 17 against the Orioles. His first official start as a father — Beau Brookes Steele was born Monday — didn't go as well as hoped.

Baltimore jumped to a 4-0 lead after the first two innings and ran its win streak to 10 in a row with a 7-1 victory at Wrigley Field. The Cubs dropped their sixth straight.

“Definitely felt good getting back out there and competing again,” said Steele, who went nine days between starts. “Felt like I definitely needed to knock some rust off and once the rust kind of got knocked off, I settled in and found my groove. So it was good to do that.”

Steele settled down after the rough start and completed 6 innings while retiring the last 11 batters he faced. Baltimore tacked on 3 runs in the eighth inning against Cubs relievers.

Manager David Ross passed along word that Kyle Hendricks will be out at least a month with a right shoulder strain. He left the field after 3 innings in his last start on July 5.

The Cubs leaders in games started this season look like this: Steele 17, Hendricks 16, Keegan Thompson 11, Marcus Stroman 10, Drew Smyly 10, Matt Swarmer 5, Wade Miley, Adrian Sampson and Mark Leiter Jr. 4 each.

Miley has the best ERA of those starters at 2.84. Stroman came back from an injury with a nice showing against the Dodgers last weekend.

So it's only natural to wonder where the Cubs would be with a healthy rotation, but Ross refuses to think that way.

“I think if you want to go down that road, ‘Oh, if everybody was healthy, we'd be really good,' I don't care to play that game,” Ross said. “I think everybody goes through adversity and we've got to figure out a way to win. It gives other guys opportunities.”

True, Thompson began the season in the bullpen and has turned out to be one of the team's more reliable starters. Swarmer and Cade Kilian got a chance to make their major league debuts, but both were sent back to Iowa with a list of things to work on.

“I don't know what it looks like with everybody being healthy and neither do you,” Ross said. “We look at it the way it is now, hope to get those guys back soon and maybe we can see that and play better in the second half.”

Sampson had one of those typical Cubs frustrating starts Tuesday. He was very close to earning a quality start and leaving the game with a 2-1 lead. But one of his fastballs was sent into the left-field bleachers by Ramon Urias for a game-turning 2-run homer in the fourth inning.

“It's not a quality pitch,” Sampson said of the home run ball. “I've got to make quality pitches every game. You saw what their guy did, (Jordan) Lyles, he's pitching in the seventh inning with 100 pitches. That was my goal knowing our bullpen was cashed from the last week or so.”

The Cubs' season-long trend of taking early leads was flipped in Wednesday's game.

Orioles leadoff hitter Cedric Mullins got behind 0-2, then lined a ball off Steele's leg for an infield hit. Anthony Santander later doubled in 2 runs and Ian Happ mishandled a single by Austin Hays, allowing another run to score and make it 3-0.

Cubs hitters couldn't get much going until the fifth inning when Christopher Morel tripled off the wall in right and scored on Rafael Ortega's sacrifice fly.

Twitter: @McGrawDHSports

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Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman, left, acknowledges starting pitcher Spenser Watkins' strikeout of Chicago Cubs' Ian Happ, center, to end the third inning. The Orioles ran their win streak to 10 straight. Associated Press
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