CHICAGO — In stressing patience, Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell captured his team’s current malaise with a sound bite that wouldn’t fit neatly into a commercial for Marquee Sports Network or any of the satellite businesses around Wrigleyville.But it’s all part of the reason why Cubs fans watch, the potential for drama and conflict, and the far-off hopes that this could still wind up being one of those rare, special years.“It’s one of the challenging things about our game,” Counsell said Wednesday at Wrigley Field. “Sometimes, you do have to wait for things to happen. As much as you want to put your finger on it and say, ‘Change it,’ the game makes you wait. It makes you sit in discomfort for a little while.”“Sitting in discomfort” isn’t how the executives who run a multibillion-dollar enterprise envisioned celebrating the franchise’s 150th anniversary.The Ricketts family certainly didn’t authorize paying the luxury tax and exceeding this year’s $244 million threshold with the idea that the Milwaukee Brewers would hold a 6 1/2-game lead over the Cubs in early June.Two 10-game winning streaks in April and May were supposed to give Counsell’s club a nice cushion and motivate Jed Hoyer’s front office to splurge at the Aug. 3 trade deadline.Yet here they are, grinding to stay above .500 (32-30), failing to hit with runners in scoring position and starting 0-2 in a stretch of 22 consecutive games against teams that began this month with a losing record.The remaining crowd from the 31,922 who showed up Wednesday night stayed remarkably quiet in the 10th inning, even with a runner starting on second base and the Athletics up one run. When Alex Bregman lined out to right field to seal a 5-4 loss, fans booed.It’s hard to fathom that this team went 15-0 at the Friendly Confines over parts of April and May. This time, the Cubs wasted Colin Rea’s workmanlike start (two runs allowed in 5 1/3 innings) as well as Seiya Suzuki’s first home run since May 8, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s two-run homer into the right-field bleachers, and Ian Happ’s 1,000th and 1,001st career hits.“When the group, as a whole, is struggling and you’re feeling it, it’s a tough place to be,” Happ said. “Everybody wants to get the job done. Everybody wants to come through and help out. Putting more pressure on it never helps. I have all the faith in the world in this lineup.”Starter Colin Rea allowed two runs in 5 1/3 innings but the Cubs’ bullpen failed to hang on to the lead . (Kamil Krzaczynski / Imagn Images)That’s what the team’s longest-tenured player is expected to say. But this uncomfortable stretch — the Cubs are 0-7-1 in their last eight series — has exposed some of the organization’s weaknesses.While the Brewers have built a pitching factory, the Cubs still cannot rely on a steady pipeline of homegrown pitching talent, and they’ve expended almost all of their depth in that area. The Cubs aren’t just waiting for Edward Cabrera and Matthew Boyd to come off the injured list — they need both of them to be very good.Since the Cubs don’t like the prices for No. 1 starters on the free-agent market — and view the performances of relievers to be too volatile to justify major investments — the club has poured resources into position players. Bregman, the All-Star third baseman who signed a five-year, $175 million contract this past offseason, was billed as the missing piece.Bregman, historically a slow starter, has picked it up recently while waiting for a power surge, essentially producing at the rate of a league-average hitter (.693 OPS) without the anticipated thump. His off-the-charts intangibles also haven’t stopped the club’s sharp downturn.“It comes down to a lack of execution, and all of us have to be better in here,” Bregman said at his locker inside the Wrigley Field clubhouse. “It starts with me.”Until then, to “sit in discomfort” implies that Counsell will mostly keep running the same players out there, trusting in their track records and the law of averages.Bregman, for example, has been a solidly above-average hitter in each of his previous 10 seasons in the majors, and sometimes an MVP-level performer. He’s also competed in the playoffs in each of the last nine years.Of course, the manager will make adjustments based on matchups and situations. Counsell pulled Dansby Swanson for pinch hitter Moisés Ballesteros in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to the Athletics. And Counsell did not rule out a few days off for Swanson, a Gold Glove shortstop with a .183 batting average four seasons into a seven-year, $177 million contract.But rather than go with a pinch hitter in the eighth on Wednesday — with the scored tied 4-4 and a runner on second base — Counsell watched Swanson strike out swinging against Athletics reliever Luis Medina to end the threat.“Look, this isn’t going to continue for Dansby,” Counsell said. “He’s going to be better. I think we’re just in a moment in time right now.”This could turn out to be a blip. The Cubs still have 100 games to go.It just feels intractable when a team is slumping to this extent, the trade deadline is two months away and five of the first six hitters in Wednesday’s lineup have full no-trade clauses. Among that group — Nico Hoerner, Crow-Armstrong, Bregman, Suzuki, Happ and Swanson — the Cubs have guaranteed roughly $800 million worth of contract extensions and deals for free agents.At least for now, these are their guys.“We’re not playing well enough to win a lot of baseball games,” Counsell said. “You have to earn it, and we’re not earning it. It’s not some string of massive bad luck. We’re not earning wins, flat out.”