The Cubs’ hitters made this mess. Now it’s their turn to clean it up

How bad were things getting with the Cubs?

We were cursing about curses again. And it’s only May.

Was it the White Sox fan who got into an, uh, war of words with Pete Crow-Armstrong who jinxed the North Siders?

Or maybe it was the recent death of Sam Sianis of the famed Billy Goat Tavern?

Sianis, 91, carried on his uncle Billy’s curse on the Cubs for a spell (pun intended) until relenting in 1984. And, of course, he celebrated when they won it all in 2016, goat in tow at the famous downtown bar. He passed away May 15, which was actually the last time the Cubs won a game … until Wednesday night when they mercifully ended a 10-game losing streak with a 10-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Did ol’ Sam give the Cubs one for the road with his passing?

In reality, it wasn’t a hexing fan or the ghost goat that was doing the Cubs in; it was one of the more rudimentary maledictions: lousy hitting. And it started before they lost 10 straight games.

The Chicago pitching staff is in shambles because of injuries, but its offense was supposed to carry them, and for nearly two weeks, it was sinking the team instead. Simple as that.

From May 9-26, the Cubs went 2-14 because, as a team, they slashed .180/.280/.272, scoring a paltry 40 runs. In that span, they struck out 145 times in 518 at-bats, while collecting just 93 hits. They were the worst offense in baseball, and they lost accordingly. The players were clearly bringing their hitting performances into the field as the vaunted defense suffered as well.

During that skid, with runners in scoring position, the Cubs hit .124, scoring a meager 26 runs. They had 121 at-bats with RISP (17th in baseball over that period), and they got just 15 hits (tied for last). They also had only one sacrifice fly.

It was laughable. It was worthy of a city’s scorn. The Cubs (30-26) went from having a 3 1/2-game lead in the division to a 4 1/2 game-deficit. The Milwaukee Brewers swept the Cubs at Wrigley Field and are once again looking down at their wealthier, less-successful neighbors.

It’s not even June, and people are writing off the Cubs’ chances at the division — with good reason.

The Cubs play one more in Pittsburgh on Thursday, facing Pirates ace and Cy Young favorite Paul Skenes. After that, they head to St. Louis for a weekend series against a feisty Cardinals team. The schedule lightens up after that.

Will calls for manager Craig Counsell’s head, hide and everything in between continue? It depends on how the Cubs hit. He can’t do that for them, though I think we’d all get a kick out of watching his quirky swing again.

Given that every other sports conversation in Chicago is about the Bears, I wonder if people think Counsell has a menu of scoring plays at his disposal. Run the home-run play, Craig!

Now, is Counsell overpaid at $8 million per year? Probably. No one is really certain what a manager’s job is these days. But he also has many traits of a winner, from a feel for the game, an ability to communicate with his players and a mien to make it through six months of highs and lows. You might not like his hangdog demeanor after games, but it’s not like his veteran hitters need him destroying the post-game spread either. Counsell is uniquely himself, which is what players want out of a manager.

In recent years, the blame for the Cubs’ failures has mostly fallen at the feet of Counsell’s bosses: owner Tom Ricketts and team president Jed Hoyer.

But let’s be fair this time: Ricketts has signed enough checks, and Hoyer has acquired enough players for the Cubs to win the small-market NL Central for the first time since 2017, which was also the last time they were a contender for the pennant.

The Cubs were playing like real threats to the Dodgers and Braves through May 8, back when they had won 20 of 23 games thanks to a pair of 10-game winning streaks. Then things fell apart at the plate, and here we are.

Forget booing the owner or firing the manager for a minute. Any blame for the losing streak belongs to the players, particularly the hitters, even though the pitchers serving up gopher balls certainly were not helping.

For example, over the 2-14 stretch that ended Wednesday, the quartet of Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Crow-Armstrong and Dansby Swanson were a combined 26-204 (.127) with a 3-to-1 K/BB ratio (75/25). Happ and Suzuki, who make a lot of money as the team’s corner outfielders, had a combined 46 strikeouts compared to 26 hits/walks.

There was some bad luck sprinkled in with the bad approaches over the past week and change, and slumps happen. But the Cubs lineup is stocked with well-paid hitters, who are expected to produce runs.

“You don’t deliver every time, but we gotta have some level of production,” Counsell said after his team’s 10th-straight loss Tuesday. “Pressing? I don’t know. I’m not sure what the answer is to that. The answer is it’s a big-league at-bat with men on base. It’s the at-bat you want in a game. It’s the at-bat you can make a difference for your team. It’s the at-bat you can flip the course of a game. And it’s time for us to deliver.”

In Pittsburgh on Wednesday, the Cubs went 5-for-16 with RISP, and the first six runs came from guys who were standing on second and third.

See how easy that is?

Happ, who looked lost for nearly two weeks, went 2-for-2 with runners at second and third, notching a two-run single and a three-run homer. Three other Cubs added extra-base hits. The dam was broken, the auras were cleansed, and an angry city grew quiet.

It’s times like these that I think about what former Cubs skipper Lee Elia would say.

While Elia’s 1983 profanity-laden tirade was mostly aimed at complaining fans — and it’s glorious, don’t get me wrong — one of my favorite lines comes somewhere in the middle, and it’s often overlooked. Elia didn’t want his players to be burdened with the weight of a fanbase, but he also knew they were the only ones who could change their own fortunes. And so he boiled everything down to these 18 perfect words:

“The name of the game is hit the ball, catch the ball and get the f—ing job done,” Elia said.

I’ve long wondered why those words aren’t painted on the wall in the inner sanctum at Wrigley Field. For all the dumb sayings, mantras and hashtags the Cubs have trotted out over the years, what’s more important than those three things?

On Wednesday, the Cubs hit the ball, caught the ball and got the bleeping job done. Now, if they can do that a little more regularly the rest of the way, maybe the city can have a little faith in them.