CHICAGO — The ivy started turning a little earlier than usual this month at Wrigley Field, ensuring a picturesque backdrop for a ballgame come October.

But with seven home games remaining and the Chicago Cubs playing out the string in the 2024 season, that scenic view once again will be wasted.

Maybe next year?

Barring a miraculous turn of events, the Cubs will miss out on the postseason for the fourth straight year, their longest such stretch since 2009-14, the end of the Jim Hendry era and the start of Theo Epstein’s rebuild that was supposed to bring “sustained success” to the North Side.

The success that peaked with the 2016 championship season could not be sustained, of course, and now Epstein’s longtime friend and successor, Cubs President Jed Hoyer, is left to pick up the pieces and explain how he plans to fix things in 2025.

A 5-3 loss to the Oakland Athletics on a picture-perfect, 81-degree Wednesday afternoon at Wrigley provided a virtual flashback to the late 1970s and early ’80s, when a half-empty park and busloads of grade-school students chanting from the far reaches of the upper deck were the norm in September.

All that was missing was Jack Brickhouse reviewing the “unhappy totals” to the sounds of beer and pop cups being smashed on the concourse by the Wrigley cleanup crew.

With the Cubs’ loss, the Milwaukee Brewers clinched the National League Central for the third time in four years before their home game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Cubs were 6 1/2 games out of the third NL wild-card spot before the night games with 10 games remaining.

“That puts us in a nearly impossible situation, no question about it,” manager Craig Counsell said. “We didn’t have room to lose two out of three (to the A’s), no doubt.”

A 17-9 start in March and April turned out to be an illusion. The Cubs played at a .360 clip (22-39) over the next two-plus months to fall nine games under .500 on July 3, effectively ending their season before the All-Star break.

“Obviously earlier in the year we had a different expectation,” shortstop Dansby Swanson said. “That’s just the reality of the situation right now. We’ve got 10 games left to make something happen.”

They also would need a total collapse by the New York Mets to make it happen, which doesn’t appear likely.

Asked before Wednesday’s game to gauge his level of disappointment over the wide gap between his Cubs and the Brewers, Counsell said: “They’re likely to win the division, and we didn’t win. They earned it. They deserve it. They beat us.”

There was not much more for Counsell to say about a season that began with so much optimism but will end the same way as 2023, when a 6-14 collapse in September erased the Cubs’ wild-card lead and led to the shocking dismissal of manager David Ross.

Counsell was headed to the postseason with the Brewers last September but now will watch his former team in the playoffs and try to figure out how to get back with the Cubs.

His Cubs did bounce back from their long summer swoon to the periphery of the wild-card race, finding themselves three games out of the third spot at the start of September. But despite a relatively weak schedule, the Cubs are 7-9 this month with series losses to two last-place teams — the Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies — and this one to the 86-loss A’s.

Swanson suggested that big swings of winning and losing “happen to every team” but added that “the best teams are able to limit the stretches where they’re down.”

“Same as an individual going through a slump,” he said. “The best ones don’t seem to be in them very long. Obviously that’s something we can get better at and continue to push through on.”

Many Cubs players will wind up at or near their average yearly performance levels. The Cubs entered Wednesday with a .752 OPS in the second half, sixth in the majors, after finishing the first half 18th at .695.

Ian Happ has bounced back from an awful start to tie a career high with 25 home runs. Rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong has emerged as a go-to guy, while Michael Busch has been one of the top NL rookies. The Cubs have four quality starters returning in Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Javier Assad.

The talent is there, yet it never seemed to jell at the same time.

“We’d obviously love to be winning the division, leading the wild card or obviously in a different position,” Steele said. “The cards have fallen where they may. We’ve kind of put ourselves in this position, but I feel like there are some people in the locker room that have good things to hang their hat on.”

Steele came off the injured list Wednesday and started for the first time since Aug. 27, leaving after 57 pitches with the bases loaded in the third. He allowed no runs on two hits and three walks and was pleased with the outing.

The Cubs scored three in the fifth to take a 3-1 lead, but the bullpen couldn’t hold it, suffering its 25th blown save in 59 chances. The A’s scored a pair in the seventh to tie, and Zack Gelof’s RBI double off Nate Pearson in the eighth gave them the lead for keeps.

A’s closer Mason Miller, the man with the 103 mph fastball, ended the game by inducing the speedy Crow-Armstrong to ground into a double play. Crow-Armstrong flung his helmet to the dirt in disgust, a fitting gesture of futility in a season full of missed opportunities.

As the crowd of 27,806 filed out, the Wrigley organist played Pearl Jam’s “Rearviewmirror.” Another season the Cubs would like to put in their rearview mirror is almost over.

But, hey, the ivy is turning colors.

Catch it while you can.

____

©2024 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.