CHICAGO — Manager Craig Counsell sees what everyone else has been watching the last two weeks. His Chicago Cubs team, once red-hot and the toast of baseball, has gone ice-cold. A 20-3 run left many thinking they were watching the type of summer not seen since a decade ago. But the Cubs have since stumbled with a 2-9 stretch.“We’re in a funk right now,” Counsell said after the rival and now first-place Milwaukee Brewers swept them at home. “It’s up to us to change it. We’re the ones who are going to change it.”Counsell can’t magically make his pitching staff get healthy. That’s something the Cubs are going to have to deal with and work around. What he needs is for his offense to wake back up and push through these injuries. That, obviously, has not happened in recent days.“The offensive situations we’ve created have been excellent,” Counsell said. “If we can reproduce what we have the last (50) games in terms of runners we’re producing, getting on base, I’m in. If we can do that the rest of the season, we’re in good shape. We’re in really good shape.”Overall, the Cubs are sixth in runs scored and fourth in wRC+. They’re second in walk rate and in on-base percentage and have slugged a solid amount, currently 10th in isolated power.Only one team in baseball has more plate appearances than the 580 the Cubs have with runners in scoring position. They haven’t always come through in those moments, but getting the opportunities and getting hits at a decent rate — which they had been — will set them up for success over the season.That, however, has been the issue has been of late. During this 11-game struggle, the Cubs are hitting just .144 in those situations.“I think you just gave me a really small sample,” Counsell said. “Truthfully. We are going to have 10-game stretches where we don’t hit well with runners in scoring position. The ’27 Yankees had (10-game) stretches where they didn’t hit well with runners in scoring position.”That is how it works in baseball. There are times a team gets a lot of scoring opportunities and doesn’t come through in those moments. Counsell believes that it’s about getting those opportunities consistently. Eventually, things even out. If your offense is good enough to create those opportunities on a regular basis, they will be a good offense.“You look at the box score of a baseball game every night, it is an important stat in terms of who wins or loses,” Counsell said. “I’m not denying that. Another way to not have to be the best at it is to create a ton of those situations. So mitigate it so you’re not only dependent on this — we have to be the best in the league at hitting with runners in scoring position. We just have to keep getting runners on base, and we have good enough hitters in our lineup that we’ll produce a lot of runs. And we have, frankly.”He’s right.Chicago’s offense has been very good this season. One week-plus stretch of poor offense does not indicate what a group can do. Just as the Cubs weren’t as good as the 20-3 run they had, they’re not as bad as this down moment is suggesting.The frustrating part of it all for the fans is that the Brewers seem to always be able to come up big when it matters. They have shown over the years to be an outstanding organization from top to bottom. Whether they suffer injuries, free-agent departures or trades that subtract their best players, they never seem to take a hit on the field.That they came into Chicago and thoroughly outplayed the Cubs for three games stings in the moment. But the Cubs can’t dwell on that. They can’t lament the fact the Brewers seem to do so many things right and are a thorn in their side year after year. They have to play their game and get back to winning baseball.Ian Happ has to find his power stroke and stop striking out so much — he and Seiya Suzuki have been struggling with runners on after having strong 2025 seasons in those moments. Dansby Swanson needs to find his rhythm, Moisés Ballesteros needs to adjust, Alex Bregman has to bring the production he has for much of his career, and Pete Crow-Armstrong needs to get his head back in the game and produce at the plate.Not much of that has been there of late, and it has to change. They know that. Luckily, they also have time to right the ship and make this just a minor downswing over the course of a long season.“We’ve got guys just not as on it as much as they were two weeks ago,” Counsell said. “Just keep creating opportunities. Good things will come from that.”May 22, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms