When the Cubs were rolling in the first month of the season, they got plenty of runners on base and drove most of them in. When things hit the skids in May, they were still getting runners on, but the Cubs were stranding them in scoring position at a league-leading rate.
On one hand, there’s some silver lining in that. An offense that can still get guys on base consistently is bound to bust out at some point. In the last week, the Cubs offense has shown signs that their collective slump could be ending.
Their last two games, in particular, have been encouraging. The Cubs scored seven runs in the second inning on Wednesday night in an 8-6 win over the Rockies, and then in the series opener against the Blue Jays on Friday, they scored seven in the first inning on the way to a 16-2 rout.
In all, the Cubs offense got on base 29 times on Friday — 18 hits and 11 walks — and did their initial damage against Kevin Gausman, who came into his start with one of the lowest walk rates in baseball. The Cubs lineup drew four free passes against him and got seven hits.
“Today was the definition of who we are,” Pete Crow-Armstrong, who had three singles and two walks, said. “Drawing walks against a guy who doesn’t walk, mixed with hits and [a] homer, that’s exactly who we are.”
At their best, that’s absolutely true. Friday’s offensive barrage can make it seem like the whole lineup’s woes are behind them, but in the same way that manager Craig Counsell has kept a tempered approach through the good and the bad of this season, he is not quite ready to say the Cubs are breaking out the bats again, even though they’ve scored 24 runs in their last two games.
“It’s two good days of baseball, and your task is to do it tomorrow,” he said.
That’s the healthy approach, both when things are going well like they have lately and when the team is struggling. Crow-Armstrong said after Wednesday’s win that one of the defining qualities of the 2025 Cubs was how they resisted letting losses pile up. More often than not, they responded the next game after a loss with a win. Crow-Armstrong said that the 2026 Cubs are still working on making that a part of their identity again, at least consistently.
“I look at it like we just gotta come back and do it tomorrow,” Crow-Armstrong said of Friday’s performance, echoing the sentiments of his manager. “One day is great, but I don’t know if we needed a reminder that we can do it. We need to just start doing it again, simple as that.”
Carson Kelly’s grand slam put the exclamation point on the seven-run first inning. Fittingly, two of the baserunners he drove in — Ian Happ and Matt Shaw — reached via walk before Kelly crushed Gausman’s first pitch slider and sent it deep into the left field seats.
Like his manager and teammate, Kelly saw in the display of the offense’s full potential the wide variety of ways they got on base and brought runners in to score.
“Right from the get-go guys putting pressure on them, and it was get it to the next guy,” Kelly said. “Just continue to get it to the next guy. And to be able to come up in an opportunity like that and deliver is everything you dream of as a player.”
When the Cubs were rolling in April and early May, they led baseball in runs scored (215) and had the highest offensive wins above replacement (10 fWAR). Then, from May 9 to June 10, they dropped to 29th in baseball in runs scored and had an offensive fWAR under two.
It’s a small sample, but in the last seven days the Cubs have scored the third-highest number of runs in baseball. Ready to say the offense is back or not, every winning streak, every move forward in the standings has to start somewhere.
“We’re going to have days like this. We did it against a good pitcher today. I think that’s as encouraging as anything,” Counsell said. “You just got to keep showing up and trying to do it, and that’s how this works. There’s an incredible amount of baseball games left to play, and that inspires you to keep showing up every day.”
It’s worth noting that two of the guys who have struggled the most at the plate this season — Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman — both reached base multiple times on Friday. Swanson homered on Wednesday night, perhaps a sign that he’s going to start clicking again, and then went 1-for-3 with a single and two walks against the Blue Jays. Bregman walked twice and hit a sacrifice fly on Wednesday and then hit two singles and drew a walk in Friday’s game.
Getting the offense going again also means finding consistent at-bat opportunities for guys like Moises Ballesteros, even if that means those at-bats are not with the Cubs. Ballesteros was optioned to Triple-A Iowa on Friday, and Justin Dean — who pinch-hit in the seventh inning and hit a bases-clearing triple for his first major league hit — was recalled.
Counsell said the move was primarily to get Ballesteros back on track at the plate. The Cubs want to give him chances to catch more with the I-Cubs; Counsell said they were impressed by his work behind the plate in limited time with the big league club, but there were not enough opportunities for consistent at-bats for Ballesteros to keep him in Chicago. Ballesteros had a .444 OPS in his last 80 at-bats for the Cubs, but Counsell believes Ballesteros’ potential is still to come back and help the offense later this season.
The Cubs have won both of their last two series, something they had not done in over a month, and they have climbed back to four games above .500 with Friday’s win. Their massive slide in the last several weeks means the Cubs remain in the middle of the National League Central standings, but a resurgent offense is an encouraging sign.
“Hitting is contagious,” Kelly said. “You get a big swing or a good at-bat where a guy walks, you can feel that momentum. And this team is so good at continuing to do that and get to the next guy. When things like that happen, we can get the offense rolling.”
