As the Cubs struggle to win series, a lack of consistent fundamental baseball is not helping to overcome their shortcomings

Hendricks downplayed Happ’s mistake, explaining that in his mind it was a home run on another bad pitch that he shouldn’t have gotten away with and would have been lucky to get an out there.

“We’ve got to focus on who we are, like me: do my job. I’ve got to set the tone,” Hendricks said. “Like today, I’ve gotta get out of that inning and give us a chance. That’s the only way we’re going to start playing good baseball and play fundamental baseball. We have to each focus on our own jobs, make sure we’re doing it to the best of our ability and if I’m not doing that today, I can’t speak to anything else.”

Happ said he had a good step on Hoskins’ flyball, but on the flight down it shifted toward left-center field and his body wasn’t in a great spot.

“I kind of thought it was gonna be more up against the wall over there and I got turned around. Obviously not my best moment out there and it put Kyle in a tough spot. … Making him get four outs in an inning, stuff like that you don’t want to happen.”

Added Counsell: “The misplay on the flyball hurt us for sure, and they got a huge hit. … It looked to me like he was trying to get to the wall and find the wall and he kind of just misjudged where he was at unfortunately. He was definitely battling some sun as well.”

The sequence continues overall poor fundamentals the Cubs have displayed too often this season, a surprising development under Counsell. In their weekend series alone, Cody Bellinger was doubled off first base in the sixth inning of Friday’s loss when he was running on a pitch and advanced past second base with no shot to get back in time. The Cubs’ 36 outs on the bases lead MLB, with the majority occurring at home plate.

Then a botched rundown between second and third during the third inning of Saturday’s win was part of an ugly inning that had starter Justin Steele fired up, yelling “Wake up!” with an expletive mixed in there as he entered the dugout.

“We haven’t been as crisp defensively,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said Friday. “We’ve had some good games defensively recently, but overall … I think some of the base running, I watch it and do think there’s a cycle that happens when guys are trying too hard — of course everyone’s pressing. You see that, you see guys pressing. These guys are all aware. They know they haven’t scored enough runs over the last two months. So guys start trying too hard to take the extra base and do the little thing to do it to push the run across.

“It’s human nature and it’s a bad cycle.”

The Cubs don’t have much time to turn things around if Hoyer is to be convinced to acquire players by the July 30 trade deadline who could help them during a two-month playoff push. Their poor fundamentals and maddening offensive inconsistencies have put the Cubs in a bad spot for the second consecutive season.

“It’s a frustrating place to be for the group,” Happ said. “We’re obviously not close to where we want to be. Just over the halfway point, there’s a lot of baseball left. We have to find a way to string couple series together and find a way to play a game at a time, but we need to win a series and get on a little bit of a run here.

“We’ve had a couple games like today where we’ve got a chance to win the series and get some momentum going and don’t get it done. So we’re gonna have to string a few wins together and see what we can do.”

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