Cubs enter crucial start to 2nd half with loss to D-backs

Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell said it himself as his team kicked off the post-All-Star break stretch of its season: With its first-half performance, it didn’t do itself a ton of favors.

“The way we played the first 100-ish games of the season has left us not very much room for error,” Counsell said Friday morning, “and so we’ve gotta play really well to get back in this and to put ourselves in position.”

Counsell did qualify that by saying he looks at “the whole total number of games left as that’s what we have left to prove ourselves,” and he doesn’t think which direction the Cubs go the rest of the season is necessarily “determined by the next 10 days.” He still takes into account the games that come after the end of July, too.

Of course, what the Cubs do before the trade deadline at 5 p.m. on July 30 matters.

They entered the second half four games under .500, 8 1/2 games back in the National League Central and 3 1/2 back in the NL wild card standings. Really, it was only that good because they managed to win eight of 11 games entering the break.

Sometimes, the All-Star break can feel a bit like a curse to fans when a team is hot, as the Cubs were. When the team is playing really well, fans may just want them to keep going and see if they can keep up that momentum. For a sport that has games essentially every day, a four-day break could feel long enough to halt it.

But for the players and the coaches in the game, taking a break isn’t all bad, even when you’re on a good run. Because for a sport that has games essentially every day, even a four-day reprieve can be beneficial.

“I think coming in today, by nature, it’s a fresh start,” Counsell said. “And for everybody, there’s just a mental break I think that’s important. But look, we have a game today, and then we’re back in the schedule. We’re back in it. But as we sit here today, absolutely it feels fresh, because we just had a nice break. I think that energizes everybody.”

Unfortunately, that energy didn’t manifest itself as the Cubs’ second half got underway. The North Siders dropped Friday afternoon’s series opener at Wrigley Field to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-2.

The offense, which had shown some signs of improvement during the Cubs’ strong 11-game stretch, was held mostly in check by D-backs starter Ryne Nelson. Over 5 2/3 innings, the Cubs struck out nine times while scoring just once on three hits and two walks. Arizona’s Kevin Ginkel followed up with 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

The Cubs managed to scratch another run across the plate in the eighth inning, but that frame ultimately went down as a missed opportunity — they loaded the bases with nobody out but managed just that run. The lineup then managed back-to-back one-out singles in the ninth, but consecutive strikeouts ended the day.

“I thought actually the first couple innings, we hit balls hard. I had down four of the first 10 outs were line-drive outs. And then, I think [Nelson] settled in. He was pretty good back-half of the fourth and the fifth and threw the ball well. We did a pretty nice job against their bullpen. Just we were missing the big hit against their bullpen, and that was it.”

On the other side of the ball was Justin Steele, whose streak of seven straight quality starts — inside a stretch of nine starts across which he posted a 1.48 ERA — was halted by the break.

Counsell opted to begin the second half with Steele on the bump against a team the Cubs are looking up at in the standings. Unfortunately, it didn’t go the way the team’s ace lefty hoped.

Steele ended up lasting just 4 2/3 innings before Counsell took the ball from him. In that time, the D-backs tagged him for five earned runs on nine hits and two walks. That’s his shortest start since May 11 and the most earned runs he’s allowed in a start since May 22.

“I was kind of fighting my command with my four-seam and my sinker a little bit early on,” Steele said. “Wasn’t quite getting the four-seam in on the righties like I was wanting to, leaving it a little bit over the plate, giving them a chance to do their job and put barrel on the ball.

“They were just doing a good job of finding the holes. A few hits up the middle, things landing right on the other side of the infield and whatnot. But that’s their job. They had a good approach today, and they took advantage of my mistakes.”

If it feels like the Cubs are in a familiar spot 99 games into the season, it’s because they are:

• After Friday’s loss, they’re 47-52. A year ago, they were 48-51.
• They’re now nine games back in the division. A year ago, they were 6 1/2 back at this point.
• They sit four games behind in the NL wild card race. Through 99 games last year, they were 5 1/2 back.

An eight-game win streak at the end of July helped the front office decide to bring some pieces in at the 2023 deadline. This season, a complete sell-off probably isn’t looming — contracts and injuries have left things murky regarding potential trade chips — but if the team isn’t in a real competitive position leading up to the deadline, Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer may decide not to make any big additions while deadline some of the trade pieces the team does have.

The Cubs of course believe they can reach the playoffs if they’re given the chance to try over the last two month of the season. But just like a season ago, they’ll have to earn that shot the rest of July.

“If you look at this year and last year, we’re in a very similar situation as we were last year,” Steele said. “So there’s a lot of, you think back to a lot of last year with how the season’s going and stuff. We were one game away [from making the postseason] last year, and there’s a bunch of different things that can happen over the course of the season where one win turns into a loss or one loss turns into a win.

“We really believe in the group we got in there. It’s a lot of the same guys from last year and we made some additions, so I’d say that we’re better on paper. We just gotta put wins in the column.”

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