Bases loaded, nobody out.
This was the dam mercifully breaking for the Cubs during their offensive dry spell, right?
No mercy this time. This drought is too deep.
Despite Astros righty Spencer Arrighetti plunking back-to-back batters to pack the sacks with nobody out in the third inning, the Cubs couldn’t get a run out of the deal, their best chance squandered in a 4-2 loss, another dud of a day at the plate.
“Not getting runs across in that inning, that’s frustrating, I don’t know how else to say it,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s just not happening right now.”
It was cold. It was windy. And Arrighetti stepped into this one with a 1.50 ERA.
That’s no recipe for offense, despite the Astros’ failings this season seeming to make them the right opponents at the right time for a Cubs team that has gone 2-10 since rattling off its second 10-game win streak of the season.
But no matter the conditions, no matter the pitcher, the Cubs’ lineup doesn’t have it. The losses are piling up. The losing streak stands at six.
“The game’s a little hard right now for a lot of us,” righty starter Jameson Taillon said. “When the game punches you, you’ve got to punch back and find a way.
“You expect that at some point throughout the year, everyone’s going to have a hard point. It just feels like right now, it’s a few of us going through it at the same time.”
Friday’s showing seemed particularly poor. Though center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong lifted a two-run homer in the sixth inning, the Cubs hit almost nothing else with authority, scoring chances coming from soft hits or from no hits at all.
The Cubs managed only four hits, went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and mustered two runs or fewer for the eighth time in 12 games.
“You want to come through. You want to help the team. You want to be the guy that breaks the seal and gets us going,” outfielder Ian Happ said. “The challenge is to not put more pressure on yourself and just have your at-bat. But it’s never that easy.”
Arrighetti is off to a terrific start to this campaign, and he was the latest in a parade of top-flight arms the Cubs have faced as their bats have gone silent, joining the likes of Jacob deGrom, Chris Sale, Davis Martin and Jacob Misiorowski.
The Cubs, though, aren’t blaming this on anyone but themselves.
“You’ve got to figure out a way to beat those guys,” Counsell said before the game. “That’s [who you face in] the playoffs. You’ve got to figure out a way to beat those guys at some point.
“If you have to go up against those guys every single day, that’s pretty challenging, for sure. But the job is to figure out a way to beat those guys. We shouldn’t use that as an excuse.”
This is a team with championship-level aspirations. But this stretch has provided reason to wonder how possible that is, with another extended offensive slump joining plenty of pitching questions to amp up the early-season panic on the North Side.
Of course, the key word there is “early.” Memorial Day Weekend can be a noteworthy point on the baseball calendar, but there’s ample time for things to change for these Cubs – even if this week’s sweep at the hands of the Brewers has folks rethinking their preseason NL Central pick.
But while the Cubs preach patience, some boobirds have already returned to Wrigley, flying in to see an offense in deep slumber.
If bases loaded, nobody out won’t quench these bats’ thirst, what will?
“We’ve got to do something different,” Counsell said. “There’s some at-bats where some confidence is starting to feel like it’s shaken. And sometimes, that’s just a different look in the lineup, a day off, whatever.
“I think we’re at that point, absolutely.”
