AP Photo/David Zalubowski

The Rundown: Cubs’ Dismal Play Continues in Colorado, NL Honors PCA, White Sox Rookie Hits Debut Walk-Off

Photo of Michael Canter Michael CanterJune 10, 2026

“I’m in the high-fidelity first class traveling set and I think I need a Learjet.” – Money by Pink Floyd

I spent the last two days testing for and renewing my financial regulatory licenses, and after all that I’m actually happy to be back to writing about baseball. I’m just not very happy to be writing about the Cubs, so this section will be awfully short and even more caustic. The tests did not provide any insight into why Chicago’s players consistently play beneath their pay grades.

  • The Cubs are 14-33 (.298) if you take away their two 10-game winning streaks. That pace represents 48 wins over a 162-game season. That’s historically substandard, and bests the 1962 and 1966 teams, Chicago’s worst in the history of the franchise. The ’62 Cubs won 59 games and were managed to last place by P.K. Wrigley’s college of coaches, which included El Tappe, Lou Klein, and Charlie Metro as its managerial stewards. Leo Durocher took over the ’66 Cubs and led them to a second 59-win season.
  • Chicago’s North Side Baseballers haven’t won a series since sweeping the Reds May 4-7. There’s a Star Wars revenge joke in there somewhere, but I don’t have the energy.
  • The Cubs have lost 11.5 games in the standings over their last 30 games. That seems almost impossible, but here we are.
  • They have been outscored 148-91 since their second 10-game winning streak ended on May 8.
  • Chicago has lost 21 of its last 28 games, an absurd 75% loss rate.
  • Alex Bregman entered play last night hitting .208/.297/.238 with runners on base. He’s hitting .173/.250/.187 with runners in scoring position. His line drops to .100/.206/.133 with two outs and runners in scoring position, and there’s nothing to indicate a turnaround is likely anytime soon.
  • Bregman is merely the poster boy for a similarly putrid lineup. The Cubs have left the bases loaded without scoring 24 times this year. No other team has done that more than 14 times.

Despite all of that, the Cubs sit just half a game out of the National League’s final Wild Card spot, though they’d have to leapfrog five other clubs. Losing 7-3 to the Rockies after giving away sets to the Giants and A’s hardly inspires confidence. They’re nine games ahead of Colorado for the worst record in the league, a mark that feels a lot more likely based on the prior month of spectacularly inept baseball.

Cubs News & Notes

Ball Four

O Death, where is thy sting?

Central Intelligence

How About That!

White Sox rookie Braden Montgomery earned his first hit, his first RBI, his first home run, and his first walk-off all in his MLB debut.

Montgomery fits the classic right field profile, a position where the ChiSox have been lacking production all season.

The A’s played the Brewers in their first game in Las Vegas on Monday night and lost 15-14, with the two teams combining for 11 home runs. William Contreras blasted a big fly that may still be airborne. The stadium sits at an elevation of over 3,000 feet, which obviously helps the ball carry.

Add John Smoltz to the list of analysts who believe a work stoppage could be the death of the game.

Tarik Skubal will pitch for the Tigers this weekend, which is something of a miracle, considering he has missed just five weeks and had surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow. Skubal is the first pitcher to have the surgery using a brand new NanoNeedle ($) technology. The smaller instrument means a smaller incision, which leads to more precise dissection and less tissue disruption. That, in turn, leads to a faster recovery time.

Freddie Freeman collected career hit number 2,500 on Tuesday night in the Dodgers’ 12-2 win over the Pirates. He leads all active ballplayers.

Three from the Bill Chuck Files

  1. Mason Miller leads all pitchers with 10 innings of at least three strikeouts. Miller also has one four-strikeout inning this season. Skenes and Jacob Misiorowski are next with nine.
  2. The Cubs entered play last night having scored just 19 runs in June. The Brewers were 57 runs better than Chicago in the same number of games.
  3. The three hitters who have left the most men on base this season all play for Chicago teams: Bregman, Colson Montgomery of the White Sox, and Ian Happ.

Apropos of Nothing

Call me crazy, but I believe Craig Counsell will be fired if the Cubs don’t turn things around before returning home next week. He doesn’t deserve the blame, but the team seems devoid of its baseball pulse, and the skipper’s pressers lack urgency. Some of you will say Tom Ricketts will not eat Counsell’s contract, and that’s a point to consider.

You may also want to consider that a sold-out Wrigley Field generates $3.25 million or more in revenues per game. Playing .250 baseball for extended periods of time with dwindling attendance is worse for Ricketts, financially speaking. Counsell makes $8 million per year. The math isn’t hard, and the decision shouldn’t be either if the Cubs continue to play gutter-level baseball.

Extra Innings

Michael Busch has 17 hits with four home runs in 38 career at-bats against the Rockies.

They Said It

  • “We have an accountable group. They understand what their job is. They know what we haven’t been doing. We can talk about it a lot, but we also understand that we’ve got to go play, play the game. and play it well. That’s, ultimately, how you change the story. That’s the only way to change the story.” – Counsell

Wednesday Walk-Up Song

Clueless is as clueless does.

Photo of Michael Canter Michael CanterJune 10, 2026
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