PITTSBURGH — Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer flew into town Tuesday to offer support.
He should have brought lifeboats instead.
As veteran Cubs watchers will tell you, Hoyer surfaces on the road only when things are going badly.
Bad, of course, doesn’t begin to describe this. And it didn’t get any better just because Hoyer showed up.
The Cubs lost their 10th game in a row Tuesday, a 12-1 rout at the hands of the Pirates. It was their most one-sided defeat in a streak that back home is evoking equal parts bafflement and aggravation.
Judging by the overheated commentary heard on the airwaves and seen in cyberspace, aggravation is ahead by a wide margin.
The Pirates led 5-0 after knocking around emergency starter Jordan Wicks in the first inning.
‘‘Five runs in the first inning, you’re up against it all night, 100%, and it’s tough,’’ manager Craig Counsell said. ‘‘That’s a big hole to dig out of.’’
Dig this: The hole just kept getting bigger. The Pirates led 8-1 after five, 9-1 after six, 10-1 after seven, 12-1 after eight. The Cubs were outhit 15-8. They were 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position, making them 9-for-73 with RISP (.123) during their losing streak.
In the ninth, Counsell was ejected by first-base umpire Dan Merzel over an appealed pitch. If anyone had an excuse to vent, he did.
He was through offering excuses for his team’s play after the game.
‘‘Someone’s just got to step up and get hits in those spots,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s not much more to say than that. . . . You’ve got to conduct a big-league at-bat. Those are the at-bats you want to have during the course of the game, and you’ve got to deliver. That’s the name of the game.’’
Things have gotten so unhinged that folks are reviving talk of curses. An X account calling itself ‘‘Chicago History’’ notes that the Cubs haven’t won since Sam Sianis, the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, died May 15.
On that day, the Cubs rolled past the White Sox and led the National League Central by 2½ games. When they returned to their hotel Tuesday night, they were tied with the Pirates for last place in the Central, four games behind the Brewers.
Counsell had no patience for questions about whether his team was pressing.
‘‘It doesn’t matter what they’re doing,’’ he said. ‘‘Your job is to deliver. You don’t deliver every time, but you’ve got to have some level of production.’’
The Mets lost 12 games in a row in April. The Phillies lost 10 in a row. The Cubs now have matched the Phillies for the second-longest losing streak of the 2026 season.
They hadn’t lost 10 in a row since 2022. They lost 11 in a row in 2021. Their longest losing streak came in 1997, when the Sons of Jim Riggleman lost the first 14 games of the season.
‘‘I’m sure at some point in my career we had hot streaks and cold streaks within the same season like this,’’ Hoyer said before the game, ‘‘but definitely not in the first third of the season. It’s really been the antithesis of last season with the same group of players. . . . We were kind of a metronome all summer, never hot, never cold, and basically the same group of players has been exactly the opposite [this season].’’
Boyd to make start at Iowa
Left-hander Matthew Boyd is scheduled to make a rehab start Sunday at Triple-A Iowa, Counsell said.
Left-hander Justin Steele was examined by Dr. Keith Meister and will continue his strengthening program. He isn’t expected back until well after the All-Star break. Counsell expressed confidence Steele will pitch before the end of the season but offered no timetable.
Target practice
Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a line drive in the third inning Monday that was caught by Pirates first baseman Spencer Horwitz. It had an exit velocity of 105.2 mph.
He hit another line drive in the fifth that Horwitz caught. That one came off the bat at 101.3 mph.
In the seventh, he scorched a 100.9 mph ground ball that Horwitz snagged.
‘‘I might have given Spencer Horwitz the Gold Glove,’’ Crow-Armstrong said. ‘‘I couldn’t miss him, man. . . . I just think it’s important after a day like [that] to remind myself that eventually those turn into hits.’’
