On paper, the series in Colorado looked like a great matchup for the Cubs.

David Ross’ squad has been one of the best teams in baseball over the last two months and is fighting hard for a playoff spot.

Meanwhile, the Rockies are among the league’s worst — one of only three MLB teams with 90 losses. Colorado entered the series with 16 losses in its last 19 games.

Only, things didn’t play out the way they appeared on paper.

The Cubs needed a 9th-inning rally Monday night to pull off a win and subsequently lost the final 2 games of the series, including a 7-3 loss Wednesday. It was the Cubs’ second straight series loss but only the fourth series loss since the All-Star Break two months ago.

It was a series to forget for the Cubs in multiple aspects. They made 6 outs on the basepaths, from being caught stealing to getting thrown out trying to take the extra base on hits.

They left 23 runners on base throughout the series. That includes Wednesday, when they had 9 hits and a walk through the first 4 innings but managed only 3 runs in that span and failed to score after the 3rd inning.

Defensively, Pete Crow-Armstrong lost a ball in the sun on Wednesday and later, Ian Happ dropped a ball on the warning track in the 5th inning of a tie game. The next batter after Happ’s error crushed a go-ahead 2-run shot.

In all 3 games, the Cubs had early leads only to watch the Rockies come back. Former Cub Kris Bryant — fresh off the IL — was a huge part of the Rockies’ offense with 2 homers, 5 runs scored and 4 RBI in the series.

The Cubs have a much-needed day off Thursday after a stretch in which they played 14 games in the first 13 days of the month of September.

“You look big picture wise: 27 games in 27 days, these guys are at the back end and grinding with everything they have, giving us everything they’ve got,” David Ross told reporters after the game. “Some things didn’t show up that we’re normally better at in this series. But we’re at the back end of the season. We went 16-11 in 27 games. That’s pretty good.

“Keep the big picture at hand. We got a nice off day tomorrow and got Arizona ahead of us, so looking forward to that series. Should be a good one. Looking forward to this off-day. Didn’t come out of here with the series we wanted but a lot of games left and we gotta still push hard.”

On Friday, the Cubs begin a 3-game set with the Diamondbacks in Arizona. The Cubs are clinging to a 1.5-game advantage over the D-Backs for the second NL Wild Card spot.

“We’re still in a good spot,” said Wednesday’s starting pitcher Jameson Taillon. “Obviously today’s a pretty bad loss. It felt like early on we were gonna get after it and get out of here with a nice win and then obviously we just kind fell apart there. We’re still in a really good spot.

“We have a big series ahead; we have a good off-day to regroup. We just played Arizona. We know how tough they are, so we have an opportunity to go in there, play our game and make a statement.”