The Chicago Cubs have struggled to score runs consistently, and it's leading to their slide in the standings.
The team is hopeful Saturday night's nine-run performance against St. Louis will create a spark, but starting pitcher Matthew Boyd trusts in his teammates and delivered strong praise heading into the final six weeks of the regular season.
"I think we got the best lineup in baseball," Boyd told Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic after Friday's game. "Through 162 games, stretches of all sorts of things will pop up. We know who we are as a ballclub. We know what we can do and what we're capable of. We're one of the best teams in the National League. Stuff happens. The best part about baseball, like Ryne Sandberg would say, is you get to show up tomorrow."
Chicago certainly has some talented bats in the lineup such as young phenom Pete Crow-Armstrong as well as Kyle Tucker. However, the team as a whole did not hit well in the month of July after the All-Star break heading into the month of August.
The Milwaukee Brewers are on a major hot streak right now, so the bats have to get going for the Cubs if they want any chance of closing the gap in the National League Central standings.
In Saturday night's game, the Cubs had seven hits that drove in their nine runs. Of those seven hits, five of them were hit 100 mph or harder. That's the kind of exit velocity the Cubs need to produce to score runs the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs.
