The Chicago Cubs are in second place in the NL Central despite, not because of, their offense. It’s something that needs to change as the season continues.
So far this season, the Cubs have a 92 OPS+ as a team, which ranks in the bottom 10 across MLB. The month of May has seen a particularly nasty drought. In eight of their 25 games, they failed to score more than one run. They have lost five games in which their pitching allowed three runs or fewer.
Cubs president Jed Hoyer isn’t all that worried about how the offense has looked so far. He said that, since the team is full of hitters with great track records, things will eventually balance out and the offense will come around, according to Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.
“No one has been hot,” Hoyer said, via The Athletic. “Ultimately, that’s a very unusual thing. Normally, you have a few guys who are hot, a few guys who are cold and a few guys in the middle. Right now, there’s no one carrying the load. That really has an impact. All these guys that have really long track records of success, I think they’ll get back to where they have been and that’ll allow us to start scoring runs again.”
Cubs offense in need of jolt amid brutal May stretch
The top 12 Cubs hitters by plate appearance include just four with an above-average OPS+: Mike Tauchman, Michael Busch Cody Bellinger and Nico Hoerner. It might behoove them to trade for a slugger like Pete Alonso regardless of how quickly the offense gets back on track.
Catchers Miguel Amaya and Yan Gomes have both been very rough at the plate this season, posting OPSs of .541 and .440 respectively. Neither the youngster/main starter nor the seasoned veteran were expected to be huge bats for the Cubs but being this bad has certainly made it tougher on them.
Dansby Swanson is striking out more than he ever has in his career and has a .605 OPS to show for it. Seiya Suzuki has been right around average despite generating hard-hit balls more often but is also drawing way fewer walks than he did in the past two seasons. Christopher Morel is striking out way less and walking way more but has a .197 batting average, holding him back from what could be a monster season.
The Cubs are still competitive thanks to the excellent pitching of starters Shota Imanaga, Javier Assad and Jameson Taillon but cannot rely solely on pitching and defense to win. The Milwaukee Brewers remain the cream of the crop in the division and the National League has plenty of Wild Card competitors. Only one of the Philadelphia Phillies or Atlanta Braves can win the NL East, so there are really just two spots up for grabs since one of them will most likely get the top WC spot.
At a certain point, it's possible that the Cubs catch fire collectively and go on a tear at the plate. But they’ll have to put the work in to turn their fortunes around.
