It’s hard to explain exactly what has gone wrong for the Cubs’ offense as of late, but they’ve basically stopped scoring since the All-Star break. With their shutout loss to the Brewers on Monday, they fell to last in MLB with only 102 runs in 28 games in the second half. Ah, but they scored 58 runs in 12 July games after the break, good for just over 4.8 runs per game. The Cubs are averaging only 2.75 runs over 16 games in August as multiple key hitters have all but disappeared.
Kyle Tucker has been at the forefront of the struggles, with Craig Counsell announcing on Monday that the star right-fielder would be benched for more than one game to facilitate a mental reset.