CINCINNATI — After enduring a tough June slate, the calendar finally turned for the Chicago Cubs, and with it came some good news.
The Cubs got a best-case scenario to kick off an important weekend series against a Cincinnati Reds team threatening to overtake them for second place in the NL Central. Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Patrick Wisdom all were in the lineup for Friday night’s series opener after being banged up and missing varying degrees of time this week.
For an offense trying to recapture its May success, coming off a month in which it collectively hit a dreadful .187, the Cubs began their series in Cincinnati striking out 14 times in a 2-1 loss. Their offensive inconsistencies this season are part of what president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer must evaluate before the July 30 trade deadline.
“You can’t go up and down or buy or sell with every game or every two games,” Hoyer said Friday at Great American Ball Park. “That’s not the way to make good decisions. But yes, obviously, there’s emotions involved. And when you lose a close game late or give up an early lead like that, you’re frustrated but you have to take a step back and try to assess things as it relates to the larger picture.
“Watching these games, it was a hard month. We knew it was going to be a slog and now we’ve got a hole (and) we have to dig our way out of it.”
May represented this Cubs offense at its best: stringing together hits, getting on base and not relying so much on home runs to score. But the Cubs haven’t been able to avoid the same harsh slumps that plagued the offense in previous seasons. While Hoyer believes they did better at the end of the series against the Brewers, “we have got to get on base more.”
“Of all the things I might have been frustrated with over the course of (June) is the lack of walks,” Hoyer said. “Probably guys were trying to swing their way out of slumps a little bit, and that probably got us into some trouble. So I liked the fact at the end (in Milwaukee) we started to draw some walks and we have to continue to do that because we’re probably not going to be a high-batting-average team. You can still be a high on-base team.”
Clearly, the Cubs offense is better and more well-rounded with Nico Hoerner and Matt Duffy in the lineup. But Hoyer also doesn’t want to put too much into the absence of two of their best contact hitters who have been on the injured list since late May. Hoerner played in another rehab game Friday night with Triple-A Iowa while the earliest Duffy could return is July 22 after he was moved to the 60-day IL on Tuesday.
“We need to be able to compete when we have injuries to anyone, not just, hey, we lose a couple of contact guys and then all of a sudden we’re not a functional offense,” Hoyer said. “That’s a problem. ... We can’t view (getting them back) as a panacea.”
Hoyer doesn’t see any effort issues on the team. Even if that’s how it might look when a team isn’t hitting well, he thinks the Cubs have a sense of urgency. As the Cubs sat 7 1/2 games back of first place entering Saturday, Hoyer tries to avoid looking at the standings too frequently, instead focusing on how the Cubs are playing.
“I mean, these guys were aware of the importance of this month and the importance of digging into that lead,” Hoyer said. “You can’t make that up with a snap of fingers, but you have to gradually claw back some games and start playing well. That’s the most important thing.”
At some point, Hoyer and the Cubs front office must commit to being buyers or sellers before the trade deadline. The upcoming schedule is favorable for them to get going. Over the next 3 1/2 weeks, the Cubs play series against the Philadelphia Phillies (38-41 entering Saturday), Arizona Diamondbacks (23-61) twice, St. Louis Cardinals (41-42) twice and Reds (41-40). There’s an opportunity to make a move back up the standings. If not, Rizzo, Bryant, Javier Báez and Craig Kimbrel all are candidates to fetch assets that could help the Cubs beyond this season.
Asked when they need to decide what direction to take, Hoyer said, “the honest answer to that is July 30.”
“But it doesn’t mean you don’t make a decision on either side of the ledger before that.”
