CHICAGO — If you didn’t look at the standings or just dug up stats and information from the last month or so, you’d think the Cubs were in a state of despair.

Since the All-Star break, the once high-flying Cubs offense has the third-worst OPS in baseball (.692) and their bullpen, which looked unbreachable early in the summer, has the eighth-worst ERA (4.62). And Monday night, Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Kyle Tucker, their superstar they acquired in the offseason, would have some time off as he works through the worst offensive stretch of his career.

And yet, on August 19 the Cubs sit 18 games above .500 after sweeping a split doubleheader against the Milwaukee Brewers with a 4-1 win in the nightcap. Yes, they sit seven games back of Milwaukee in the National League Central, and the division race could essentially be wrapped up if the Cubs drop the next two against the Brewers. But they’re six games up in the Wild Card race and hold the top spot, 2.5 games better than San Diego.

The totality of their season has put them where they hoped to be before the season: chasing down a playoff spot. This is where the Cubs wanted to be.

“I’m not scared of these challenges, and the guys in there aren’t scared of these challenges. This is a Major League Baseball season and you gotta earn playoff spots.”

Craig Counsell and the Cubs look forward to the challenge. pic.twitter.com/LMo24QFg4v

— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) August 19, 2025

“That means there’s challenges, man, like, bring them on,” Counsell said Tuesday morning, before the Cubs swept both games of a doubleheader against the Brewers. “The regular season is tough, man, and I think, like, let’s go, man, let’s bring it on. We’re not scared of these challenges. And the guys in there aren’t scared of these challenges.

“This is a Major League Baseball season, man, and you’ve got to earn playoff spots. And so you expect challenges to be put in front of you – you want challenges to be put in front of you. And I think our guys are ready for that and understand that and want that.”

This stretch has been difficult to stomach for fans, there’s no doubt. The Cubs are 15-15 since the break. Not ideal for a team that was 6.5 games up on the Milwaukee Brewers on June 17, but also not sky-is-falling down bad, either.

“Baseball is a sport where you can trick yourself into saying things are going bad and they’re not,” Counsell said. “I think this team understands that. This is a good baseball team that’s earned a very good position and the future and excitement for the last seven weeks of the season, and we’re looking forward to that.”

The second-half woes have been compounded by the insane run the Brewers have been on. Since the Cubs beat Milwaukee on June 17 to take their biggest lead in the National League Central, the Brewers have gone 40-12 – a 124-win pace – that’s intensified every little thing that has gone wrong for the Cubs since then.

“Not just against the Brewers, but I feel like every win for us matters at this point in the year,” Jameson Taillon, who threw six innings of one-run ball in Tuesday’s nightcap, said. “Division aside, just worrying about ourselves. It’s nice to get some good wins against a good team. I don’t want to concern ourselves too much with chasing them all the time.

“They’re playing great baseball. They’ve been on a generational run right now. But to win two games against a team that’s that good, they got some good arms, that’s big, and hopefully it’s something we can build off and just concern ourselves with ourselves. “

The offensive woes are a concern, there’s no doubt. But the Cubs believe this offense can and will slump out of it. Time will tell if that’s true, but Counsell and the Cubs hope giving Tucker some time off will help get him back on track. That’s a big component of them getting their mojo back.

Maybe, Owen Caissie’s big day in Tuesday’s doubleheader can spark the offense for a few days while some of their big guns start firing again. Perhaps Matt Shaw’s offensive exploits can help carry the line up.

Either way, the Cubs are desperately trying to right the ship offensively, but they also know those ebbs and flows are part of a baseball season, and it’s just as important to focus on the areas that you can control – defense, pitching and baserunning. Those areas of the game were just as important as the home runs hit by Tucker, Seiya Suzuki or Pete Crow-Armstrong.

Those are things they’ve done over the last few days.

Zoom in, and the Cubs have won four of their last five games. None were blowouts. Tucker, Seiya Suzuki or Pete Crow-Armstrong didn’t have massive days at the plate. The bullpen allowed some runs in that time.

But they stacked up wins and played what they believe is their brand of baseball, and it’s the style the Cubs have to play over the final 36 games.

“Consistency is an important part of this,” Counsell said. “I think playing good baseball games, and acknowledging when you play a good baseball game, like we played on Sunday. We played a really good baseball game on Sunday [against the Pittsburgh Pirates]. The score’s 4-3, and it feels like, ‘Oh, we just squeaked that one out.’

“We played a good game, and we did a lot of things right in that game.”

It’s the sort of baseball they think can lead to more wins down the stretch and, eventually, the playoffs.

“We played great baseball today,” Taillon said. “We ran the bases really hard, we threw a ton of strikes, played great defense, some situational hitting.

“We did a lot of really cool things today, and hopefully we just build off that.”