After being swept by the division-dominating Brewers earlier this week, there’s panic across the North Side.
And it’s not unwarranted, with the Cubs tumbling from their onetime perch atop the NL wild-card standings to the thick of the race, sparking a late-season fight for a playoff spot.
But while it took a lot going wrong to force another downturn in what’s been a roller-coaster season, the Cubs spent Friday delivering a reminder of what could still go very, very right.
The bats exploded for 16 hits and a dozen runs in a 12-2 blowout win over the Pirates, the highest-scoring team in baseball showing what it’s capable of if it can secure that ticket to the postseason.
“It’s capable of being the best offense in baseball,” third baseman Alex Bregman said after the victory, which stopped a four-game losing streak. “We’ve shown that this year. We’ve just got to be consistent with what we’re doing.”
Consistency is undoubtedly key, the thing that the pitching staff has lacked during a bumpy back half of August and first couple weeks in September.
Bregman — who slumped so badly during his opening months in a Cubs uniform that he was getting booed at Wrigley Field — has been a model of that consistency since the All-Star break.
He hit his 25th homer and his 30th double as part of a three-hit day Friday, and the questions about the front office’s big spend on him last offseason are all but forgotten.
Alex Bregman clubs his 25th homer of the season 💪 pic.twitter.com/Vm5STCMP7z
— MLB (@MLB) September 11, 2026
Alongside MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bregman looks capable of carrying this team in October, a month he knows well, having played more than 100 postseason games in his career and winning a pair of World Series rings with the Astros.
After hitting .235 with seven home runs and 14 doubles in his first 92 games this season, Bregman is batting .310 with 18 homers and 16 doubles in the 53 games since.
“Probably like June, I just decided I don’t really care what my numbers look like, I care about fixing my mechanics for the rest of my career,” Bregman said of his midseason turnaround. “That mentality allows you not to chase hitting seven homers in one at-bat. It allows you just to take one at-bat at a time and win the next pitch and win the next at-bat.
“I’ve stuck to that, for the most part. It’s hard. It’s tempting to go up there and try to get it all back with one swing.”
The Cubs still need to show a lot more on the pitching side of things, coming into Friday with, by one statistical measure, the worst staff in baseball; they ranked 30 out of 30 with 3.7 fWAR as a group.
But the bats were on the other side of the spectrum, leading baseball with 34.4 fWAR, a sign, just like Friday’s performance, of what’s still possible.
Swanson back soon
Shortstop Dansby Swanson is nearing his return from an oblique strain that’s sidelined him since the middle of August.
Swanson will begin a minor league rehab assignment with Triple-A Iowa next week, with the Cubs hoping to bring their shortstop off the injured list for next weekend’s series against the Reds in Cincinnati.
Cabrera, too?
The Cubs are also nearing a decision on right-hander Edward Cabrera and a return to the big league team.
The results haven’t been pretty in a trio of minor league outings — he’s allowed six runs in 3⅔ innings — but he’s healthy after battling the latest round of blister troubles. The Cubs could certainly use help in their beleaguered bullpen.