The high octane Chicago Cubs offense has been slumping as of late, collecting just seven hits over the last two games and scoring just three runs during consecutive losses to open up the Cincinnati Reds series. Chicago will be looking to avoid being swept in a three game series for the first time all season during the finale on Wednesday, August 6.
To make matters worse, trade deadline acquisition Michael Soroka landed on the injured list, new reliever Andrew Kittredge got roughed up during his second outing, and the Milwaukee Brewers keep winning. The Cubs currently find themselves four games back in the division.
Throughout all of this, the offense is one area of concern. They are a group that is grinding it out right now. However, President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer offered some hope amid the slump.
Chicago Cubs’ Jed Hoyer offered four words of hope amid offensive slump
MLB.com provided some context on Jed Hoyer’s thinking of the team’s current slump at the plate. Hoyer offered some optimism by saying, “We’ll get hot again. Hopefully it happens fairly soon. No one wants to watch us grind out these games scoring a couple runs, but these are long seasons. There’s going to be ups and downs.”
However, each month the Cubs offensive statistically is regressing. Jordan Bastian wrote that they went from averaging 5.9 runs per game in March/April, to 4.6 in June and 4.9 in July. Slugging percentage additionally has dropped from .451 in March/April to .443 in May, .442 in June, and .436 in July.
Despite this, Hoyer said “We were never going to continue hitting the way we did for the first two months. And we’re a better offensive team than we’ve shown recently. That’s just the nature of a long season.”
Hopefully the offense can turn things around sooner rather than later. The Cubs entered post All-Star break play with one of the easiest remaining schedules, and so far they have not been able to take advantage of that.
However, with plenty of games left against struggling teams and key hitters due for positive regression, there’s still time to get back on track. If the bats can wake up and align with the team’s solid pitching and defense, the Cubs could quickly climb back into the division race and be in contention for a first round by in the playoffs.
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