Scuffling Cubs search for answers after red-hot April: ‘Got to play better’

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Chicago Cubs spent the first six weeks of the season threatening to run away with the NL Central.

A pair of 10-game winning streaks will do that.

It’s taken just over two weeks for a big chunk of all that hard work to disappear.

A skid that earned the Cubs a share of some unwanted big league history will do that.

Chicago’s 2-1 loss to Pittsburgh on Monday marked its ninth straight defeat, joining the 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers as the only two teams in the expansion era to have multiple 10-game winning streaks and a nine-game skid in the same season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“We got to play better,” manager Craig Counsell said after watching his team lose for the 13th time in 15 games.

“We’ve got to swing the bats better. We’ve got to pitch better. We need more guys contributing to good stuff, and as a coaching staff we’ve got to figure out a way to get the players there.”

The Cubs’ current slide is the franchise’s longest since a 10-game winless drought in 2022. Back then, the franchise was firmly in a rebuilding phase. Expectations are much higher nowadays, and while the Cubs still sit somewhat comfortably over .500 at 29-25, that’s just good enough for third in a division where all five teams started Memorial Day over .500.

It’s hardly time to panic. Yet fresh off a winless six-game homestand that began with getting swept by NL Central-leading Milwaukee and ended with three losses to mediocre Houston, it looked like more of the same against the improved Pirates.

Michael Busch provided the only offense with a solo home run in the fifth that tied the game. The Cubs managed just five other hits the rest of the way, going 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position and leaving seven runners on base.

“Offensively, we are equipped to be way more consistent than this and way better than this, and we need to show it,” Counsell said.

Monday’s loss marked the ninth time in 15 games the Cubs have scored two runs or fewer. And after making Pirates starter Carmen Mlodzinski work through five innings, they went down meekly late.

Pittsburgh relievers Wilber Dotel and Gregory Soto combined to retire the last 10 Chicago hitters in order. Dotel earned the first victory of his career by working three scoreless innings. Soto worked a perfect ninth for his sixth save.

Counsell experimented in the ninth, sending right-handed batters Nico Hoerner, Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly to the plate as pinch hitters against the left-handed Soto. It didn’t work. Hoerner grounded out to first, and Suzuki followed by striking out looking on a 3-2 slider.

The Japanese slugger appealed strike three, but Soto’s 84 mph offering scraped the bottom of the strike zone upon review. Kelly then hit a routine grounder to second and the Cubs’ miserable May continued.

“It’s pretty challenging,” Busch said. “It’s hard to see the bright spots in it. Just trying to do anything we can to scrape across a W.”

The loss marred another excellent start by Ben Brown. The 26-year-old right-hander limited the Pirates to one run and four hits in six innings with two walks and seven strikeouts while dropping his ERA to 2.01.

It just wasn’t enough. Pittsburgh catcher Henry Davis turned on a Trent Thornton offering in the seventh and sent it 427 feet over the wall in left field to give the Pirates the lead for good and eventually send the Cubs back to another quiet clubhouse.

“The guys are working hard,” Brown said. “We’re just not winning baseball games. That doesn’t take away from how talented this group is, and the characters in this room that are pushing each other. We all love each other. The reality of baseball is it can really be tough.”

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