Alex Bregman called his performance “terrible” after the Cubs dropped a 2-1, 10-inning loss to the Giants, part of a stretch that has left them without a winning series in a month and trailing the Brewers in the National League Central.
When Alex Bregman’s at-bat ended in the late innings, the reaction at Wrigley Field sounded less like frustration and more like impatience—boos returning again Sunday night as the Cubs fell 2-1 to the Giants in a 10-inning loss.
Bregman didn’t offer excuses afterward. Sitting in front of his locker, he directly acknowledged what many fans have been saying for weeks. “Obviously, I’ve been terrible this year,” he said. The Cubs’ third baseman is 2-for-24 after an 11-game hitting streak had lifted hope that he was turning a corner.
The loss itself landed in a season-wide collapse of momentum. In rubber-game fashion, the Cubs have now lost or tied their last nine series. They have lost eight of those series and split one with the Pirates. Across a full month. they have gone without winning a series—and in the standings. that’s helped transform a 3-game lead in their division into 7 games they now trail the Brewers. They share third place in the National League Central with the Pirates.
The game also carried early damage for Chicago. Starting pitcher Jameson Taillon left one batter into the second inning with a strained left hamstring. He will have an MRI exam Monday. and the Cubs can only hope it isn’t as severe as the injury that sidelined Shota Imanaga for seven weeks last season.
Even with pitching holding the line, the Cubs couldn’t find the separation they needed late. Javier Assad, who replaced Taillon, steadied the Giants—holding them to one hit in 6 scoreless innings. For a crowd of 36. 317. that mattered. especially in a late-hour game unaccustomed to baseball after dark thanks to NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast.
But one moment from the eighth inning swung the mood from hope to frustration. In a tight game that had everything hinging on execution. rookie Kevin Alcantara was doubled off third on a broken-bat line drive by Bregman to Giants first baseman Rafael Devers. Alcantara had been representing the go-ahead run. and the play carried the kind of lesson fans learn quickly at the ballpark: make sure the ball has gotten through the infield before you think about advancing. Alcantara had been expecting the cheers of his first big break—not this. He afterward said, “No excuse to not be able to do what I’m supposed to do there.”.
Chicago’s mistakes didn’t stop there. In the 10th, Matt Chapman’s ground-ball single through an undefended right side scored ghost runner Jonah Cox. With ghost runner Pete Crow-Armstrong only 90 feet away after stealing third with one out, Michael Busch and Bregman popped to short to end the game.
The sequence left Bregman staring at a familiar question in familiar circumstances: how to stop a slide that has been tough to shake. Through 65 games, he has a .669 OPS, five homers, and has driven in only 19 runs. His 11-game streak offered evidence he could swing freely again—but the subsequent slump brought the boos back.
He framed it as both mechanics and urgency. “I started to feel like today was the best I’ve felt mechanically,” he said, “but obviously I’ve been terrible this year, honestly, offensively.”
Bregman said his approach is to push through the quiet stretches the same way he has in the past. pointing to earlier in his career when he went 1-for-32 over his first 30 at-bats. “So there’s only one way to get out of it, and that’s head-on,” he said. “I’ve been in this spot many times in my career where you go through spells where you’re not hitting. and I’ve learned that from the first 30 at-bats in my career. when I went 1-for-32. that there’s only one way to go. and that’s straight through it.”.
He admitted the issues aren’t abstract. “I’ve just been bad,” he said. “I need to correct a lot mechanically.” He added that the Cubs looked closely at what’s been going wrong pregame and that “we kind of diagnosed everything that has been going on.”
Now, he said, it’s about turning that diagnosis into results. “Now it’s execution time, and I haven’t executed at all this year,” Bregman said. “I’ve been terrible with runners in scoring position.”
He also described a pattern of uneven approaches: “There have been passive at-bats; there have been overly aggressive at-bats. There needs to be some consistency, and I need to be better, and I will be better, and I’m gonna get after it.”
For the Cubs, the stakes are no longer just about a single game or even a single series. With their streak of sliding results continuing and their division margin tightening against the Brewers. the team is being forced to answer hard questions the same way Bregman did—directly. and with pressure already in the air at Wrigley Field.
Chicago Cubs Alex Bregman Wrigley Field Giants 10-inning loss Jameson Taillon Rafael Devers Javier Assad Kevin Alcantara NBC Sunday Night Baseball National League Central Milwaukee Brewers