Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman had high expectations this season, but his struggles have mirrored the team\u2019s recent freefall. <\/p>\n
Despite having two 10-game winning streaks this season, the Cubs are currently sitting at 34-42 on the season and are 4-6 in their last 10 games after snapping a 10-game losing streak late last month. <\/p>\n
Bregman\u2019s struggles in that department have been a driving force behind the Cubs\u2019 offensive woes, and he was blunt when discussing his struggles at the plate. <\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t executed all year with runners in scoring position. I\u2019ve been God awful,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I need to be better, and if I\u2019m better over the last however many games, we probably win the majority of them. I\u2019ve had plenty of opportunities with guys in scoring position, and I need to be better.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s 2-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants was another showcase of Bregman\u2019s struggles. He came up to the plate in the eighth inning with nobody out and Kevin Alc\u00e1ntara on third base, and he immediately lined into a 3-6 double play to erase the scoring threat. <\/p>\n
In the 10th inning Bregman came up with the tying run on third base, but he popped out to the shortstop to strand Pete Crow-Armstrong and to leave the Cubs with a ninth consecutive series loss. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been terrible and I need to play better. Offensively it\u2019s been awful,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
If the playoffs began today the Cubs would be on the outside looking in, and their struggles with runners in scoring position have been a big part of the reason why the team has consistently faltered in close games throughout their recent run. <\/p>\n
Bregman is batting .173 with runners in scoring position this season, with zero home runs. He has had 75 at-bats this season with runners in scoring position, the most on the team, and is slugging just .187 in those appearances. He has also struck out 19 times. <\/p>\n
If the Cubs hope to bounce back, they\u2019re going to need players like Bregman to improve dramatically in key situations, and he said the only path to recovering his form is to continue pushing forward both on and off the field. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve failed many times in this game. I\u2019ve struggled before. I\u2019ve started slow before. I started fast before,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when you\u2019re struggling, there\u2019s only one way forward and that\u2019s straight head on through it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman had high expectations this season, but his struggles have mirrored the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,350527,591,85],"class_list":["post-723867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cubs-lineup","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}