Chicago Cubs lose 6th straight and 10th in 12, managing only 4 hits in 4-2 defeat to Houston Astros

Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell and his offense felt they had the perfect situation to snap out of their recent rut with runners in scoring position. The first three hitters in the lineup reached to load the bases in the third inning with the team trailing by a run at Wrigley Field. Instead, it highlighted their issues of late as they failed to score a run, let alone hit a ball past the infield dirt. The Cubs finished 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, stranded 11 base runners, mustered just four hits and lost their sixth straight game, 4-2 to the Houston Astros on Friday afternoon. “That’s frustrating,” Counsell said after the loss. “I don’t know how else to say it. It’s an opportunity, the middle of your lineup up, and just not being able to get it done is frustrating.” Ian Happ struck out, the first of two punchouts in a 1-for-5 day, Seiya Suzuki popped out to shortstop and Michael Conforto grounded out to short to kill the threat for the Cubs and let Astros starter Spencer Arrighetti off the hook. “The pressures on the pitcher in those at-bats, the pitchers in the tough situation, and it feels a little backwards in terms of that,” Counsell said. The Cubs had other situations to push across runs, including a bases-loaded situation with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, but none felt more costly than the third-inning situation. Since the Cubs had their 10-game winning streak snapped May 8 in Texas, they have hit just .131 with runners in scoring position (second-worst in baseball) and have collected just four extra-base hits in 12 games. Nine hitters are hitting .167 or worse with runners in scoring position in that span. The Cubs are 2-10 in those games. Batting averages can be swayed drastically one way or another in small sample sizes like that, but another alarming aspect of the Cubs’ woes with runners in scoring position is their strikeouts. They’ve stuck out 28.4% of the time in those situations, well above the league average of 22.1%. “The thing that hurts you in runners in scoring position is a strikeout ’cause there’s no way to get lucky,” Counsell said before the game. “The thing in baseball (is that) luck is a part of hitting. It just is. We don’t want it to be; nobody wants it to be a part of hitting, but it is. “When there’s eight fielders out there, it is. Your job is to go up there and try to hit something hard, and you got to live with the results sometimes. When you do have runners on base, you can’t get lucky striking out.” Counsell acknowledged the Cubs’ struggles of late mean it’s time to mix things up to try to spark something for the lineup. “I think we got to do something different,” he said. “I think there’s some at-bats where confidence is starting to feel like it’s shaken. Sometimes just that, a different look in the lineup or a day off or whatever. I think we’re at that point, absolutely.” Happ, who had both Cubs strikeouts with runners in scoring position Friday, might be a prime candidate for a game off or to move down the lineup. The left fielder isn’t the only one in a rut, but his timing could benefit from that switch. He has struck out 10 times and is 1-for-13 (.077) with runners in scoring position over the last 12 games. “Ian goes through phases of hot and cold like every other hitter does,” Counsell said. “But his strength is kind of the ball-strike recognition and being able to handle that part of it, and he’s just really caught in between and looks really caught in between. The fastball’s kind of beating him, the breaking ball he’s way out front on. They’re throwing a lot of strikes, and he’s behind in the count constantly. He’s up against 0-2, 1-2, feels like every at-bat.” Those offensive struggles can weigh on the team and lessen the margin of error for the rest of the team. Friday’s starter, Jameson Taillon, allowed four runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings and has allowed 12 runs over 9 2/3 innings across his last two starts. “The game’s a little hard right now, I think, for a lot of us,” Taillon said. “It’s just when the game punches you, you got to punch back and find a way. That’s kind of where I’m at. Just need to punch back. I can say I thought I made some good pitches all I want, but it comes down to results, so it wasn’t good enough today.” That’s what the Cubs’ bats are trying to do. They admit it’s a long season and teams go through peaks and valleys, but know they can’t just expect results to turn on their own. “We’re giving ourselves chances, we just haven’t been able to come through with some of the consistent hits with guys on base and being able to string together some hits,” shortstop Dansby Swanson said. “I think this offense is obviously really good when everyone’s kind of passing the baton to one another, and we just haven’t been able to collectively do that recently. But it’ll get going. Guys are working nonstop in order to find themselves to be the best version of the team we can be.” The Cubs placed utilityman Matt Shaw on the 10-day injured list before the loss Friday, retroactive to Wednesday, and recalled infielder Pedro Ramírez from Triple-A Iowa. Andy Martinez is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.