Throughout 2024, the Cubs have yet to have the type of back-breaking losing streak that can hamstring a season.

They’ve yet to stack together enough wins to have a winning streak that can jolt them up the standings, too.

“Our challenge, if you want to frame it over a certain amount of games, the challenge is to play consistently good,” manager Craig Counsell said before the Cubs’ thrilling extra-innings win over the Blue Jays. “And we just haven’t been consistent enough to create one of those streaks.”

[WATCH: Craig Counsell looking for consistency to ‘earn’ winning streaks]

If ever there was a time, Friday would be a good place to start.

The Cubs opened a stretch of 18 straight games against teams below .500, the kind of opportunity to stack together wins as the team has yet to do this season.

Their longest winning streak this year happened twice — 5 games (March 31-April 5 and July 7-July 12). This stretch of the schedule would provide the perfect opportunity for the Cubs to rocket up the NL Wild Card picture. They sit 5 games back after the win and 3 games under .500.

“We know exactly where we’re at, and it’s been that way for a while,” Kyle Hendricks said. “So it’s the opportunity that’s in front of us – that’s the exact word. The opportunity that’s in front of us every single day. So today doesn’t matter how it looks, how we get it done, a win’s a win. So that was big today, and just move on to tomorrow.

“But we can’t put too much ahead of us. You know, it’s really one day at a time, no matter the opponent, no matter what, got to play our best baseball and just stack some wins here.”

Friday’s game was a good start. The Cubs showed their moxie battling back from a blown, 9th-inning lead to win in extras. They had a solid outing from Hendricks, who allowed just 2 runs, 1 earned, on 5 hits in 5 innings of work and the offense belted 4 home runs — including a pair from their 8 and 9 hitters, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Miguel Amaya.

It’s that type of performance that has to happen regularly over this pivotal stretch if the Cubs want to have any hope of playing in October.

“We haven’t been consistent enough to get on one of those streaks,” Counsell said. “Maybe there is a good break in there, maybe there’s a game that kind of gets you over the hump, that you got a little lucky and absolutely for those streaks.

“But, consistently, I don’t think we’ve earned one of those streaks, and our job is to be consistent enough where we earn it.”

At the end of the day, though, the Cubs are taking it one game at a time — and their focus isn’t on the next 17 games, it’s on Saturday’s contest against Chris Bassitt and the Blue Jays.

“It’s no different than any other stretch,” Ian Happ said after the win. “We know where we’re at in standings, and we have to play good baseball. Like I’ve said the last couple weeks, you got to take it one game at a time, one series at a time, just keep stacking series. We were doing a really good job of that. Ran into a really good stretch there from Cleveland, good ball club. And so get right back on the train here and try to win series at home and have a good homestand.”