The Cubs and Astros open a weekend series at Wrigley Field on Friday, with both clubs trying to stop the kind of skid that has dragged them into the middle of the pack. Chicago has lost nine of its last 11 games since April 9, while Houston arrives 4-8 over the same stretch.
For the Cubs, the slide has been especially costly. They entered the weekend in second place, 1 1/2 games behind the Brewers, after Milwaukee took three straight games from them this week. Chicago has scored three runs or fewer in nine games during this run, been outscored 59-31, hit just.182 and been outhomered 20-7. The numbers leave little room for optimism, even before the first pitch of Astros vs Cubs.
Craig Counsell did not sugarcoat it. “We’re in a funk right now, and it’s up to us to change it,” he said, and the assignment gets no easier against a Houston club that has had its own problems putting the ball in play. The Astros are 11 games under.500 and sit fourth in the AL West after batting.186 over the same stretch, averaging 1.9 runs a game and being outscored 52-23.
The wind should only add to the challenge. According to the app Wrigley Winds, it will be blowing in for all three games, a factor that could further suppress offense at a park already known to punish hitters when conditions turn against them. Jameson Taillon is scheduled to face the Astros on Friday, with Colin Rea slated to pitch Saturday. The Cubs should know by Friday whether Edward Cabrera can make his next start, and if he can, Counsell might give Shota Imanaga a sixth day of rest and use Ben Brown on Sunday.
That rotation plan matters because Chicago is trying to navigate a stretch in which nothing has come easy. The Cubs have been held to three runs or fewer nine times during the skid, and the combination of a.182 batting average and a 20-7 home run deficit shows the offense has not merely been cold — it has been overmatched. The only thing that has kept them within reach is the larger body of the season, not the last two weeks.
Houston’s issues are different, but they are just as real. The Astros are missing Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier because of shoulder strains, and they put Lance McCullers on the injured list this week with shoulder inflammation. That leaves the club leaning more heavily on Spencer Arrighetti, who has been its best pitcher this season despite the backdrop of his own rough road after missing five months last season with a fractured thumb sustained when he was hit by a batted ball in batting practice.
There is also no hiding the offensive strain in Houston’s lineup. Yordan Alvarez put it plainly when he said, “I think right now we’re struggling a little bit,” and the numbers back him up. The Astros have hit.186 over the stretch, scored 1.9 runs a game and rarely put together the kind of innings that let their pitching staff settle in. Even against a Cubs team that has stumbled badly, that lack of production can turn a three-game series quickly.
Chicago at least comes in knowing exactly where it stands. The Cubs had been in first place since the first day of the month before dropping into second, and they now need a response more than a reset. A weekend at Wrigley will not fix what has gone wrong for either club, but it will show which one is closer to finding something sustainable.
