The Chicago Cubs still rank second in MLB in runs scored this season.

But it certainly hasn’t felt like this is an elite offense over the last couple of months.

The Cubs lineup was firing on all cylinders through the first two months of the season as they built one of the best records in baseball.

Things have fallen off since then, as the Cubs rank 18th in MLB in runs per game (4.46) over the last two months.

And things have been even worse lately.

Here is where the Cubs rank offensively over the last month, entering play Thursday (since July 7):

24th – runs/game (4.00)
19th – home runs (28)
21st – batting average (.238)
21st – slugging percentage (.393)
22nd – OPS (.696)

But none of this is a surprise. Lineups do not go through a full 162-game season without running into a slump here or there.

Teams try to avoid month-long slumps, sure. But sometimes they are unavoidable.

Especially in today’s game where seemingly every team has multiple guys who can touch 100 mph with wicked breaking balls. And especially at Wrigley Field, where the wind sometimes blows in and makes it an extreme pitchers’ park (as it has done recently).

“It’s baseball,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “What we were doing for the first two months — while unbelievably fun — I think at some level, you kind of knew that wasn’t sustainable. I mean, you look at all the underlying numbers, we were gonna have some regression.

“I actually think now we’re due for the opposite. When you look at our numbers over the last like nine weeks or so, I think we’re due for some of these guys to come out of their slumps. So I try to be pretty balanced about it.”

As Hoyer said, some of the key Cubs hitters are slumping right now.

Here are the batting averages and OPS percentages Cubs players have posted over the last 30 days:

Matt Shaw – .270/.848
Pete Crow-Armstrong – .230/.763
Carson Kelly – .270/.760
Ian Happ – .234/.752
Nico Hoerner – .308/.727
Kyle Tucker – .213/.666
Seiya Suzuki – .198/.621
Dansby Swanson – .214/.595
Michael Busch – .163/.522

Suzuki had a big bounceback game in Wednesday’s win, but the Cubs are still waiting for one of those performances from Tucker.

The star right fielder has still been walking at an elite rate, with a .372 on-base percentage over the last 30 days. But a .293 slugging percentage from the best hitter on the team — and somebody batting in the heart of the order — is going to make it difficult for a lineup to score runs.

Tucker has just one homer, three doubles and six RBI over the last month.

It is the first time since his rookie season in parts of 2018-2019 that he has posted a 29-game stretch with only one homer.

“Obviously I haven’t been [hitting the ball hard in the air] a whole lot [recently],” Tucker told reporters Wednesday. “[I have] a handful of extra-base hits the last month or whatever. Some of those at-bats, I hit some hard singles just right at the center fielder or the right fielder. They just don’t get in the gap or down the line.

“That’s just kind of how baseball goes sometimes, just kind of trying to ride the wave as best you can and try and figure it out and turn around as fast as possible.”

Manager Craig Counsell gave Tucker a day off Wednesday to try to give him a mental break.

He did the same thing with Suzuki on Tuesday night, and the right-handed slugger came back with a big game on Wednesday as a result.

That’s the main message Cubs leadership is trying to convey: Things will turn. This is just a slump — a down period — and the results will come again sometime. Possibly soon.

“I think we’re a better offensive team than we’ve shown recently,” Hoyer said. “But again, that’s just the nature of a long season. We have a very good position player group. That’s the strength of this team — our offense and our defense of this group — and we’ll get hot again.

“Hopefully, it happens fairly soon. No one wants to watch us grind out these games, scoring a couple runs. But it’s a long season and there are gonna be ups and downs.”

Counsell has been through this all before, over the course of a 16-year playing career and now in his 11th season as a manager.

He is projecting a sense of calm during this offensive slump, knowing that riding the roller coaster won’t help his team.

Even if fans want to see him shake up the lineup or flip tables in the clubhouse. That’s just not how Counsell operates.

“The name of the game is to square the ball up and get on base and create rallies,” Counsell said. “You got to do it in all sorts of situations and all times of the year. And we’re just in a little rut right now where we’re not doing it.

“This is a very good offensive baseball team. It will happen. You never enjoy going through stretches like this. When you’re slumping, you kind of feel like you’re pressing because you’re not getting any good results. We’ve just got some guys not in great places swinging the bat right now. We’ll get them there.”

That’s a mindset shared in the clubhouse by the players who are in the batter’s box each day.

“It’s a baseball season,” Happ said. “I don’t think that’s exactly what people want to hear. But it’s what it is. It’s 162 games. It’s not going to be perfect. Obviously, our group isn’t happy with it.

“There’s nobody in here that’s fired up to have a little bit of a stretch of unproductive baseball, but we know what this group’s capable of. We know what we can do, and I think we really believe in that day in and day out.”

In order to get back on track, the Cubs will have to improve in one key area offensively.

Since June 6, the Cubs have a .222 batting average with runners in scoring position entering play Thursday.

That has been a bit better — .230 average (22nd in MLB) — since July 7.

But the Brewers have led baseball in average with runners in scoring position during that same stretch — .314 since June 6 and a whopping .360 average since July 7.

“If you look at our situational numbers, … we have struggled with guys in scoring position,” Hoyer said. “And that’s something that we were really strong at at the beginning [of the season]. And no team has figured that out. We’re not going to go six months and dominate with guys in scoring position. So I do feel like we have some positive regression coming in that regard.”

Sure, part of the Cubs’ strategy right now is hope. And leaning on the back of these players’ baseball cards to understand better days are likely ahead.

But there is also work being done behind the scenes to get this lineup back to one of the best in the game.

And while the Cubs wait for better results, the message is clear: Stay the course.

“You never know when a hot streak ends and you never know when a cold streak begins,” Hoyer said. “It’s true, right? Like you look at it, you think to yourself, ‘OK, I know we’ll snap out of this. I know we’ll start hitting well. I don’t know when.’

“It’s impossible to know. I know these guys are doing all the work. I give our hitting coaches, and I give the players so much credit. They show up with the same attitude every day. And sometimes you get the results and sometimes you don’t.”