The Cubs Are Either Really Good or Very Bad and There's Absolutely No Middle Ground

Chicago is on a roller coaster ride that has very little precedent.

Alex Bregman looks on from the dugout as the Cubs' losing streak continues. | Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The Cubs continued their prolonged slide on Tuesday night. It was ugly from the beginning as Jordan Wicks's 2026 debut saw him surrender five first-inning runs to the Pirates in a game Pittsburgh would ultimately win, 12-1. That's now 10 consecutive losses for Chicago, a cratering-out that has seen them sink like a stone from the top of the National League Central to the cellar.

All is not lost as the Cubs are still three games above .500 at 29-26 and only one game out of the final wild card spot in a bunched-up race. Not all 10-game losing streaks are created equal and Craig Counsell's team finds itself in uncharted territory to draw some optimism.

Because it's looking like this year's club is shaping up to be the most fickle, unpredictable and streaky in modern memory.

The Cubs have already put together two separate 10-game winning streaks to help them survive this May skid. Such alternating feast and famine has been seen just once in MLB history, back in 2017 when the Dodgers pulled off a similar roller coaster. That team went to the World Series before falling to the Red Sox in seven games so it's not a bad model for the Cubs to follow.

Still, it's a bit of a stunning development by a team that entered May 16 comfortably 13 games above .500 after thumping the White Sox in the opener of their rivalry series. That's when the pitching, which at that point had been stellar, took a vacation in allowing 26 runs over the next three contests. Frustratingly, the offense then fell off once the arms improved as the Cubs could only muster seven total runs over their next five losses. They then broke out for five runs in the series finale against Houston but surrendered eight. Another gem was wasted on Monday in a 2-1 loss to the Pirates.

Much is being asked from a rotation that at this point is being held together with AAA batteries and duct tape. A spate of injuries has hit the club's intended top arms. Steady presences like Justin Steele and Matthew Boyd have been sidelined. Edward Cabrera was forced out of his latest start with a blister. Big things were expected from Cade Horton, a promising prospect, but his journey has been derailed by UCL surgery. All of the attrition has caught up with the team. Short, ineffective starts lead to an overtaxed bullpen and crooked numbers follow.

At the plate, agitation is brewing on the North Side as some proven entities have underperformed. Pete Crow-Armstrong is scuffling amid scrutiny and has a .676 OPS. Dansby Swanson is yet to get it going and carries a .621 mark. Alex Bregman has not provided the type of punch the team was hoping for with just four homers and 16 RBI.

Few teams in the history of the sport have ever had this amount of evidence that they can, in fact, be a wagon this early in the season. Then again, few have ever had such wild swings. Just from a distance, it seems like this would be a pretty crazy and draining way to go through the marathon of a 162-game season. Being really high or really low with no place in the middle to just play and grind sounds exhausting.

Everyone on the team—and the fans—have been through a heck of a lot and it's not even June. It doesn't seem logical that they could keep up this yo-yo act for four more months but then again making history at the current pace wasn't on anyone's bingo card either.

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