“It’ll turn”: Cubs offense still waiting to break out

It’s not unusual for Cubs bats to take some time to warm up. The early season cold and winds at Wrigley Field can be notoriously unfriendly to hitters. Headed into Saturday’s game against the Pirates, the Cubs’ offense was just barely above the midline in overall production, and that’s a big part of why they sit at 6-8 after the second game of this weekend’s series, a 4-3 extra-inning loss with several run-scoring opportunities that were squandered.

The offensive struggles are a product of having too many of what manager Craig Counsell called “empty at-bats” in the lineup.

“Offense is sequential,” he said. “It has to be a line of consistent at-bats.”

This is especially important at Wrigley in early April, when on a decent Saturday afternoon, the temperature at first pitch is still just 48 degrees.

“On days where it’s difficult for the home run to be a part of your offense, it’s even more important that sequential offense happens. You have to have three [or] four straight good at-bats because you’re going to get some home runs knocked down,” Counsell said.

There have been a few games in this young season when the Cubs have done what Counsell is calling for. For a couple of nights in Tampa Bay during the week, it looked like a collective offensive breakout was coming. Instead, the Cubs returned home and got shut out by the Pirates on Friday and mustered just three runs while striking out 14 times on Saturday.

The most maddening aspect of the offensive woes has been the lack of timely hitting. The Cubs have one of the best walk rates and one of the highest hard-hit rates in baseball, but the hits aren’t coming with runners in scoring position. Through these first 14 games of the season, they’re batting just .219 when it matters most. In Saturday’s loss to the Pirates, Alex Bregman came through with a ninth-inning RBI single that tied the game, but in the tenth and eleventh innings, the Cubs couldn’t get the base hit when they needed it.

In the tenth, with Ian Happ on third base, Dansby Swanson grounded out to end the scoring threat, and then in the eleventh, the Cubs got runners to second and third with no outs, but pop outs from Bregman and Seiya Suzuki left the Cubs empty-handed and two games below .500.

All the same, the expectation is that these offensive struggles will not continue.

“We just gotta execute better and play better, and we will,” Bregman said. “It’ll turn […] We’re all every single day getting after it, trying to turn it. And I feel like over the course of 162 the cream will rise to the top, and we’ll play good baseball.”

Odds are, Bregman is right. He came into Saturday’s game batting just .192, and he’s not alone in sitting below the Mendoza Line. Michael Busch was batting .125 before striking out twice and then getting pinch-hit for in the seventh inning, and Swanson’s one base hit on Saturday brought his batting average up to .149.

Busch hasn’t had a hit since April 1, so simple baseball odds would dictate that he is bound to turn things around sooner rather than later. The same is true for Bregman and Swanson. Solid pitching from the starting rotation and the bullpen has helped keep the Cubs’ record from being even worse, but at some point they will likely need a boost from the offense.

“Look, it’s gonna turn, it’s gonna happen,” Counsell said. “It’s no fun right now when it doesn’t happen and when you feel like you have a ton of opportunities and can’t get the run across.

“It’s going to turn, and that’s the way you gotta look at it. You know, you miss opportunities as the hitter, and you’re mad at yourself, and you want the pitch back, but it’ll turn.”

Armchair managers might be tempted at this point to start making some changes in an effort to spark that turn from the Cubs offense, such as giving Busch a day off in the midst of his struggles at the plate. That may happen, but sitting him is less simple this year because the Cubs’ options to back him up at first base aren’t great.

On Saturday, Carson Kelly pinch-hit for Busch and then played two innings at first, a position he had not played professionally until this season. And when Kelly needed a pinch-runner in the ninth, that meant Matt Shaw had to play first for the final two innings of the game. He has even less experience there and only appeared at first base twice during spring training this year.

Things like this might mean Busch has to tough it out through his offensive slump because the team needs him defensively, but if that’s going to be the case, the Cubs offense might not turn for the better as quickly as fans would like.

Again, there are signs that the Cubs are doing some things right at the plate, even if the results aren’t there yet. There’s the aforementioned walk and hard-hit rates, both indicators that the Cubs are having quality at bats in some respects. They were eighth in baseball in walks before drawing five more in Saturday’s game, but the Cubs still rank very close to the bottom of the league in hits, sitting just above the White Sox, Mariners, and Yankees.

Plain and simple, the Cubs need more hits, and they need more hits when there are guys on base. They stranded 15 runners on Saturday, a microcosm of why they have the second-worst clutch rating, according to Fangraphs’ metric. Walks and hard-hit balls are great; they are hopeful signs of better things to come for the Cubs offense, but eventually they just need base hits when there are guys in scoring position.

“Some of the underlying stuff is good, but some of it we need to correct and be better at,” Bregman said. “And I think everybody knows in here that we can play a lot better baseball, and we will.”