Chicago Cubs Have Used Clutch Hitting to Turn Franchise Around This Season

The Chicago Cubs have completely turned around their outlook in just a few short weeks.

Apr 22, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Cubs first baseman Michael Busch (29) throws water on Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ (8) after the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Wrigley Field. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

The Chicago Cubs won another absolutely wild showdown against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night in ten innings with a walk-off single by Ian Happ.

To even get to the tenth however, the Cubs needed to score three runs over the final two innings and did so with a Kyle Tucker moonshot before Miguel Amaya tied the game with Chicago down to their final out in the ninth.

This has become a common theme with the Cubs in 2025 and clutch hitting in timely moments has absolutely turned the outlook around of a team who has missed the postseason entirely in five of the last six years.

Chicago is winning thrillers as a reconstructed and suddenly downright dangerous lineup continues to slug its way to the top of baseball.

Looking at some numbers from last year to this year, it's night and day in terms of Cubs hitters getting it done when it really counts.

As a team, Chicago has slashed .285/.370/.487 thus far in 2025 with runners in scoring position. This places them No. 2 in all of baseball in terms of OPS with a chance to score runs not to mention far and away leading the league in total runs with 156 of them.

Last year, not only did the Cubs rank outside the top-ten in terms of total runs scored, they were below average with runners in scoring position. A slash line of .244/.334/.406 placed them below average and was a huge part of the reason why they did not improve on the 83 wins from the year prior.

This year's group in Chicago has completely turned things around when it comes to getting the job done with the bat in situations where it's desperately needed.

Of course, Tucker has completely changed the lineup around and as the season goes on, the urgency to keep him in the fold is only going to increase.

With that being said, for the guaranteed year Tucker is here, the Cubs have seemingly found a winning formula which if they can keep up throughout the year is going to carry them back to playing meaningful baseball in October.

For the moment, Chicago is enjoying finding a way to win games in the most absolutely insane ways possible despite their pitching shortcomings.

As it appears, for better or worse it's going to be an extremely fun summer on the North side as the Cubs continue to mash home runs and extra base hits in the most important situations possible.