The Cubs enter the weekend in second place and 1 1/2 games behind the Brewers, a drop that reflects how badly their season has bent since April 9. Chicago has lost nine of its last 11 games, and the skid has pulled the team out of first place after a month at the top.
The Brewers made the damage worse by taking three straight games from the Cubs this week. Chicago has scored three runs or fewer in nine games during this stretch, is batting.182 and has been outscored 59-31, even while outhomering opponents 20-7. That imbalance has left the Cubs with enough power to hint at rallies and not enough contact to finish them.
Craig Counsell did not dress it up. “We’re in a funk right now, and it’s up to us to change it,” he said. The numbers back him up. Pete Crow-Armstrong has four hits in his last 37 at-bats, Ian Happ has four hits in his last 37 at-bats, Dansby Swanson is 5-for-34, Moises Ballesteros is 1-for-18 and Matt Shaw is hitless in 14 at-bats. Shota Imanaga is the only Cubs starter to work more than five innings in either of the club’s last two full turns through the rotation, and those outings were split between seven innings and two runs in a 4-1 loss to the Braves and 4 1/3 innings with eight runs in a 9-3 loss to the Brewers on Monday night.
Friday’s opener against the Astros brings another club that has spent the same stretch trying to find a little life at the plate. Houston is 4-8 since April 9, 11 games under.500 and in fourth place in the AL West. The Astros are batting.186 over that span, averaging 1.9 runs a game and being outscored 52-23, a line that looks more like a collapse than a cold spell.
The comparison is made sharper by who is carrying Houston’s offense. Alex Bregman is batting.286 in the stretch and has 12 hits in the last 11 games, while Yordan Alvarez put the feeling plainly: “I think right now we’re struggling a little bit,” he said. The Astros are also missing pitching depth they badly need, with Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier already out because of shoulder strains and Lance McCullers placed on the injured list this week with shoulder inflammation.
That leaves Spencer Arrighetti carrying more weight than the club probably planned when the year began. Arrighetti was the team’s rookie of the year in 2024, missed five months last season with a fractured thumb after being hit by a batted ball in batting practice and has been Houston’s best pitcher this season. The rotation picture is just as unsettled on the Chicago side. Jameson Taillon is scheduled to face the Astros on Friday, Colin Rea is scheduled to pitch Saturday, and if Edward Cabrera can make his next start after being lifted after one pitch in the fourth inning Wednesday night because of a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand, Counsell might give Imanaga a sixth day of rest and start Ben Brown on Sunday. The Cubs should know by Friday whether Cabrera can go again.
Wrigley Field may offer little help. The wind is expected to blow in for all three games, according to the app Wrigley Winds, which should turn the weekend into a test of patience for two clubs already short on it. If there is a clean read on this series, it is that neither team is arriving with much margin for error, and the first one to find timely hits may be the first one to stop sounding like a club in crisis.
