ST. LOUIS -- Carson Kelly drove a pitch from Cardinals lefty JoJo Romero into the left-center gap at Busch Stadium in the eighth inning on Friday night. With two outs, two runners aboard and the Cubs desperately in need of a rally, it was the hardest-hit ball of the evening for the ballclub.
Alas, the 107.5-mph drive found its way into the glove of St. Louis center fielder Victor Scott II, ending the inning and offering a snapshot into the type of night it was for the North Siders. Once again, the offense went quiet -- even amid plenty of hard contact -- in a 5-0 loss to open this three-game series.
“I don’t think we swung the bats bad enough to get shut out,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “But we didn’t get a hit with runners in scoring position. A lot of traffic and some hard-hit balls in that traffic. But, right at them.”
The end result was a defeat that knocked the Cubs a season-high five games back of the red-hot Brewers, who won their seventh in a row on Friday night to build more distance atop the National League Central. Chicago is still leading the NL Wild Card pack and in great position to make the playoffs, but the offense that powered the team to this point has dimmed.
Now, the Cubs are still a top-five offense in the Majors in terms of runs scored (588) and OPS (.759), while boasting the second-best run differential in baseball (+110). Where the concern rests right now is the recent downward trend for the lineup, but especially so with runners in scoring position.
The North Siders produced an .817 OPS with a 127 weighted Runs Created plus (meaning the Cubs were 27% above average) with men in scoring position in the first half of the season. Only the Dodgers (140 wRC+) were better. Entering Friday night, Chicago had a .641 OPS with an 84 wRC+ (16% below average) with RISP since the All-Star break.
“I know these guys are doing all the work,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said earlier this week. “I give our hitting coaches and I give the players so much credit. They show up with the same attitude every day. Sometimes you get the results and sometimes you don’t. … I do feel like if you look at our situational numbers the last eight or nine weeks, we have struggled with guys in scoring position.
“And that’s something we were really strong at at the beginning. No team has figured that out. You’re not going to go six months and dominate with guys in scoring position. So, I do feel like we have some positive regression coming in that regard.”
Here’s a look at the Cubs’ OPS and weighted Runs Created plus with runners in scoring position by month:
March-April: .849 OPS, 136 wRC+
May: .911 OPS, 150 wRC+
June: .714 OPS, 100 wRC+
July: .681 OPS, 94 wRC+
August: .472 OPS, 30 wRC+
Those August numbers were entering Friday, before the Cubs finished 0-for-9 with RISP and left nine runners stranded.
“I think we’ve got the best lineup in baseball,” said Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who allowed three runs in five innings. “Through 162 games, stretches of all sorts of kinds are going to come about. We know who we are as a ballclub. We know what we can do.”
What was especially frustrating for the Cubs in the loss in St. Louis was the pile of hard-hit balls that went for naught. Chicago’s lineup generated eight balls in play with exit velocities above 100 mph, and went just 2-for-8 in those moments. The only hits were a two-out single by Kyle Tucker in the first inning and a leadoff single by Seiya Suzuki in the eighth.
“Control what you can control -- that’s it,” Kelly said. “Unfortunately, we were on the bad end of some good at-bats. We took some good at-bats, hit the ball hard, just right at guys. Sometimes that’s the way it goes.”
In the fifth inning, Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson reached base to open the frame for the top of the lineup. The next three batters were retired by Cardinals righty Michael McGreevy, culminating in a deep flyout to center off Tucker’s bat. With Ian Happ on third in the fourth, Kelly roped a pitch 101.9 mph, but right at third baseman Thomas Saggese. Happ was off on contact and thrown out at the plate.
And then there was Kelly’s well-struck flyout to center in the eighth.
“I’ll say it again: This is a good offense,” Counsell said. “We’re going to score runs. Tonight, it wasn’t our night finding holes in the right spots.”