MILWAUKEE – Earlier in the season, the Cubs seemingly found new ways to win games on a regular basis.

They were able to rise above adversity, move past a really tough run of injuries and just kept winning throughout.

But things haven’t been the same over the past few weeks. The Cubs have simply not been finding ways to win.

Thursday’s 6-4 loss at the hands of the Brewers was another tough defeat for a team that is 10-17 in May. The Cubs are now in 3rd place in the National League Central and 5.5 games behind the Brewers.

They have lost 5 straight series and for the first time since March, they are below .500 on the season at 28-29.

“We just got to keep going,” manager Craig Counsell said. “We’re in a tough stretch. When you’re in a tough stretch, it feels like you don’t get breaks. We’ve got to make our own breaks. And we’ll keep doing that.”

This was – without question – the biggest series of the season to date for the Cubs. A 4-game set with the 1st-place Brewers in Milwaukee as Counsell made his return to the place he called home for nearly two decades.

“I’m disappointed,” Counsell said. “We lost 3 out of 4. You come here to win games. We lost 3 out of 4 and that’s disappointing. Time to move on.”

How the Cubs lost Thursday was a little bit different – at least recently.

For a lineup that has struggled to score for much of the month of May, the Cubs had a solid day at the plate. They hit 3 home runs, including game-tying blasts from Seiya Suzuki and Christopher Morel in the 7th and 8th innings, respectively.

But the bullpen was unable to keep things even or give the offense a chance to jump ahead.

In the bottom of the 7th inning, Mark Leiter Jr. got 2 quick outs, then gave up an infield single into the shift before a stolen base, a wild pitch and then another perfectly placed tapper down the third base line.

After Morel’s homer to tie it in the 8th, Luke Little came on and promptly walked the first two batters of the inning. He induced a double play ball then gave way to Tyson Miller, who surrendered a game-winning, 2-run homer to Milwaukee catcher Gary Sanchez.

The Cubs bats appear to have started to click in the last half of this series. They had 9 hits Thursday – including the 3 homers – and for the second straight day, hit into several hard outs.

“It feels like on the hitting side, we’ve flown out hard or to the warning track a bunch,” said Jameson Taillon, who turned in a quality start Thursday. “On the pitching side, we’ve given up a lot of weak hits, but that’s baseball. That’s the game we play and at some point it’ll go our way.

“We kind of went through something like this last year and we came out on the other side stronger as a group. Yeah, it’s tough right now, there’s no doubt. But at the same time, just got to keep going.”

As the Cubs head home after a 1-5 road trip against divisional rivals, they’ll welcome the Reds into town at Wrigley Field.

But there are several players who will enter that series feeling better about where they are currently at.

Suzuki had a big 2-run, pinch-hit homer Thursday afternoon. Ian Happ went 0-for-4 but hit the ball hard all game and in the series, he drove in 4 runs on 3 hits including a homer and a double.

Then there’s Morel, who has hit into some really tough luck this season – particularly in May. He picked up 2 hits Thursday, equaling the number of knocks he had in a 10-game stretch from May 18-29.

“It was just great to see Seiya take a big swing and we desperately need him to get going for sure,” Counsell said. “He’s a big part of our offense. We’ve talked about [Morel] a lot but just seeing some good results today is a positive thing for him.

“Ian didn’t get hits today. I thought he swung the bat pretty well. Those are the guys we kind of need to get going and and that’s what’s gonna kind of kickstart the offense.”