SAN FRANCISCO – So much for this supposedly being the soft spot in the Cubs’ schedule.
It looked like the scuffling Cubs were getting a break when they turned the calendar to June, starting a stretch of 22 straight games against teams that began the month with sub-.500 records.
But a 2-4 home stand and a 3-3 road trip later, and the Cubs aren’t in a dramatically different place from where they were when May ended: still fighting to pull out of an early-summer tailspin.
It looked like the fog might have finally been lifting after a sour month and an 8-22 stretch that dropped them from the top of the NL Central to .500. The Cubs won three straight games for the first time since May 7 and won a series for the first time in 11 tries. It was a small sample size, but things were looking a lot more like they were supposed to for a team with championship aspirations.
Then Logan Webb stepped on the mound Sunday, halting the Cubs’ quest for momentum. The Giants’ ace allowed just one unearned run over his eight innings, dealing the Cubs a 5-1 loss.
That kind of thing will happen to even the best teams, of course, and the Cubs were far prouder of their three days by the Bay than what came before.
“I thought we played better the last few games,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “A lot better, obviously. All phases of the game were better in the last three days. Hopefully, we’ll continue to build off that.”
That’s the challenge, as consistent success has eluded these Cubs since their second 10-game win streak of the season wrapped more than a month ago. Even when a pair of walk-off wins looked capable of getting the monkey off the Cubs’ backs on the most recent home stand, they fell back into their offensive funk and bad pitching habits.
There are few win streaks more meager than those lasting only three days, but the Cubs did look a lot more like themselves, managing a pair of three-homer games, with Michael Busch’s splash-hit homer into McCovey Cove sandwiched in between.
But Sunday served as a helpful reminder that it’s not easy to identify a turning point in the moment.
With three more series against sub-.500 clubs – two of them in last place – the Cubs have more chances to more decisively turn the ship around before clashing with the Central-leading Brewers at month’s end.
But given that they’re just 5-7 a dozen games into this supposed softer stretch of schedule, will they? Or will their problems continue to prove difficult to shake?
Even after their three consecutive wins, they came into Sunday last in baseball in slugging percentage and second to last in runs scored since May 9, the day after they completed their second 10-game win streak of the campaign. They only added one run to that total Sunday, scoring on an eighth-inning throwing error, and had just one extra-base hit.
On the pitching side, righty Colin Rea continued to fill in for his injured teammates less impressively than he did a year ago, giving up four runs Sunday and struggling through the fifth inning, in which he gave up three hits – including a home run, the Cubs’ league-worst 104th allowed this season – walked a pair and hit another batter.
“We need a little better, honestly,” manager Craig Counsell said.
“Just not getting it done, really. I just need to be better,” Rea concurred. “I’m not seeming to be making pitches when I need to. … There was good and bad [on this road trip]. For the most part, we pitched really well, besides me. The two starts I had on the road weren’t very good.”
The month of June was supposed to fix these issues. The first chunk of the month has been far from a complete disaster, but the Cubs’ opportunities were not exactly seized.