Chicago Cubs fall into a tie for the No. 3 wild-card spot with an 8-6 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates: ‘We’ve got to turn it around’

The calendar is working against the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs’ postseason hopes could not afford a series loss to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, yet their spiral continued Thursday with an 8-6 defeat at Wrigley Field. They have dropped 10 of their last 13 games and lost four consecutive series for first time since May.

The Cubs enter Friday tied with the Miami Marlins for the No. 3 National League wild-card spot, but the Marlins own the tiebreaker.

The Cubs (79-74) went 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position and left 11 on base.

“That’s not a good team that just took two of three from us — or not our caliber team, I believe — and we’ve got to turn it around,” manager David Ross said. “It’s on me. It’s on the guys in that room.”

“When things aren’t going your way, you’ve got to turn it, you’ve got to make things happen. You’ve got to pay attention to details. We’ve got to focus every at-bat, left a lot of guys on base early on in that game, couldn’t come up with a big hit. The guys kept fighting.”

All areas are of out of sync. When the offense has shown life, the pitching staff and defense can’t put up zeros, and when the Cubs’ arms keep them in games, the lineup struggles to deliver timely hits. The totality of the deficiencies over the last two weeks is the most concerning part and creates skepticism the Cubs suddenly can flip on a switch and get rolling again with nine games remaining.

“I don’t think you make excuses, right? You make mistakes, you’ve got to move on,” Ross said. “You don’t come through in the moments. You’ve got to try to do it with the next one. Guys did that tonight. The bullpen, sometimes things happen and you’ve got to continue to attack. If things don’t go your way you’ve got to be a little bit resilient and try to make the next pitch.

“It’s easy to blame, but I don’t think it’s a group that points fingers. I don’t do that. Like I said, it’s on us.”

Julian Merryweather’s presence as a stabilizing force in the bullpen earned him the “unsung MVP of our team” moniker from Ross over the weekend. Through all the injuries the pen has endured, particularly the loss of veteran Michael Fulmer and closer Adbert Alzolay to the injured list, Merryweather earned trust to receive the game’s highest-leverage moments over the last few weeks.

So when Merryweather experienced his worst outing in two months during the ninth inning Thursday night, minutes after the Cubs pulled within a run after a three-run eighth, it represented a death knell. He surrendered multiple runs in an outing for the first time since July 19 on top of a two-walk game, which last occurred before the All-Star break.

The three runs the Pirates scored off Merryweather served as a double-whammy when Dansby Swanson’s two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth merely cut the Pirates’ lead to 8-6.

Swanson’s home run and RBI single in the seventh to get the Cubs on the board helped him bounce back from an awful start to Thursday’s game. He left seven runners on base through his first three at-bats, grounding out with runners on the corners in the first, striking out with the bases loaded to end the fifth and hitting a one-out flyout in the fifth without advancing the runners on first and second.

Adding to Swanson’s early woes: a fielding error in the third that led to two unearned runs off right-hander Kyle Hendricks.

“At some point for myself personally, I just get so pissed off that it kind of helps me in a way, and that definitely happened tonight,” Swanson said. “The first five or six innings just weren’t very acceptable, and it’s something I take accountability for. But there’s obviously a reason you play nine innings and there’s a chance to make an impact at any point in time and unfortunately we fell short tonight.”

The Cubs get another crack at a losing team this weekend when the Colorado Rockies arrive for the final Wrigley series before closing the season on the road next week against the Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers..

Tensions will only increase. The vibes were understandably not good Thursday as fans watched the Cubs offense try to rally from an early 3-0 deficit and get derailed by bad pitches, missed strike calls and the elusive clutch swings.

“Sometimes trying harder and trying to do more actually works against you and being able to soak in moments and be grateful for the opportunity, that can take a little bit of pressure off,” Swanson said. “Like, doing the thing of ‘I’ve got to get this done’ to ‘I’m going to’ and just having a little bit of a switch in mentality.

“But there’s so many guys in here that care and that obviously want what’s best for this group and want to win and they’re doing everything in their power even at this stage of the year working really hard to make things happen. And we believe it’ll start to flip in our favor.”

The Cubs were in control of their playoff future two weeks ago when the Arizona Diamondbacks came to town. They will only have themselves to blame if they fail to take advantage of the opportunity.

“It is a sense of urgency, we do have to play good, we’ve got to throw up wins that’s how we’re going to get the postseason,” Ross said. “We’ve got to win baseball games. This is a big-boy league. There’s big boys in there. They’ve been up against adversity all season long and answered the bell. That group’s not going to shy away from a challenge, like, I don’t worry about that.

“They’re going to bring it every single game. Sometimes it’s going to work out, it hasn’t lately. I’m not worried about the mentality of that group ever.”

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