PITTSBURGH — It doesn’t matter what Craig Counsell does. His team just can’t get back in the win column. On Monday afternoon, the Chicago Cubs’ offense was listless once again as they lost 2-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates with Michael Busch’s solo home run accounting for their lone tally.“There wasn’t much today,” Counsell said. “We didn’t create scoring opportunities, and that’s first. We gotta create scoring opportunities.”The Cubs had just six hits, with only Busch’s homer going for extra bases. They went 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position and didn’t really put up much of a threat as the game went along. The lone big moment was in the second inning when, with two outs, the Cubs loaded the bases with a pair of singles and a walk, only to see the struggling Dansby Swanson strike out to end the threat.“That’s the only opportunity we created,” Counsell said. “That’s just not enough. That’s not gonna win you games.”It’s on the players right now to win. Counsell has shaken around the lineup. The Cubs have sat multiple struggling players, inserted a hot bench bat (Michael Conforto) more regularly and recently called up a rookie (Pedro Ramírez). Nothing has led to wins.“We gotta play better,” Counsell said. “We gotta swing the bats better, we gotta pitch better, we need more guys contributing to good stuff. As a coaching staff, we gotta figure out a way to get the players there. Offensively, we are equipped to be way more consistent than this and way better than this. We need to show it.”Cubs manager Craig Counsell is looking for any answer to his team’s offensive woes and has made several lineup adjustments to try to jump-start his club. (Charles LeClaire/ Imagn Images)Nothing seems to be working right now for the Cubs, who have lost nine games in a row and have had a season full of ups and downs in their first 54 games of the year. Counsell didn’t start Seiya Suzuki and Nico Hoerner on Monday. On Sunday, Swanson sat along with Ian Happ, who was getting his second day off in a row.None of it has helped the team turn a corner. In his return to the lineup, not much seemed to change for Happ, who went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout. This isn’t his first slump, as an individual or for the team. Happ is a veteran who has experienced plenty of ups and downs in his career. In fact, his early career was marked by inconsistency and high strikeout totals. His 2022 season, though, was a turning point.After team president Jed Hoyer traded away the World Series team core the prior summer, Happ earned everyday playing time and a regular defensive spot in left field. The extremes of his slumps waned and his strikeouts dipped significantly.