Four straight series losses, a 15-game home winning streak snapped, Shota Imanaga shelled, and Pete Crow-Armstrong’s nightmare week – the Cubs are spiraling at the worst possible time.
story by Coleman Robbins
CHICAGO — Seated at his locker next to veteran leader Alex Bregman, Pete Crow-Armstrong listened quietly as his new teammate offered advice following another difficult loss. When reporters entered the clubhouse, Bregman stepped away while Crow-Armstrong remained seated, staring into his locker for nearly a minute before finally calling the media over to field questions.
The mood was very somber after a week where nothing seemed to go right for Crow-Armstrong or the Cubs.
For the fourth consecutive series, the Chicago Cubs walked away searching for answers after getting swept by the rival Milwaukee Brewers in a three-game set that felt far more significant than a routine series in May.
The Cubs entered the week with a 1 ½ game lead atop the National League Central. Three days later, that lead is no more.
The sweep marked Chicago’s fourth straight series loss and the second straight series loss to a geographic rival after also dropping a set to the Chicago White Sox.
The Brewers, winners of the last three National League Central titles and reigning National League Division Series champions, once again looked every bit like the standard of the division. Meanwhile, the Cubs looked like a team suddenly spiraling after one of baseball’s hottest starts.
Chicago’s 15-game home winning streak vanished during the sweep, and the Cubs have now lost nine of their last eleven games after previously winning 20 of 23. For the first time since April 30th, the Cubs no longer sit atop division standings.
The contrast between the two clubs cannot be more stark.
Milwaukee arrived in Chicago with the best ERA in baseball during May (2.32), a league-leading plus 67 run differential and a pitching staff that continues to overwhelm opponents despite operating with a projected payroll of $131 million (19th in MLB), nearly half the size of the Cubs’.
The Brewers traded ace Freddy Peralta over the offseason and haven’t skipped a beat.
The Cubs, meanwhile, entered 2026 with the eighth-highest projected payroll in baseball at roughly $232 million, added Alex Bregman in the offseason and carried lofty expectations after last year’s playoff loss to the Brewers. Yet once again, Milwaukee controlled the matchup from start to finish.
“It’s where we want to get to,” former Brewers manager and current Cubs skipper Craig Counsell said. “The Brewers are the team that’s won the division for the last three years. Last year, they beat us, and they had a fabulous season. We’ve got to improve to get there.”
Milwaukee ends the series with a plus 75 run differential and has won 11 of the last 13 games for an NL Central leading record of 29-18. The Cubs dropped to 29-21 and second place in the NL Central, going from a plus 42 run differential to plus 28 in three days.
The Brewers walloped, overwhelmed, and outmatched the Cubs in every phase and facet of the series.
“This is a normal baseball season that many of these guys have experienced and you kind of know what to expect,” Craig Counsell said. “One of the beauties of the schedule is that there are going to be losses, but you get to come play the next day. You have to turn the page very very fast. Joe Madden used to say, ‘you celebrate or you are disappointed for thirty minutes, then it’s time to move onto the next day.’ That’s a great thing about baseball actually. We went through a stretch where the whole offense was kind of on it and recently we went through a stretch where they weren’t on it, and that’s a season,” Counsell added. “You have to sign up for the ride if you want to be on it.”
Shota Imanaga Shelled in Series Opener
If there was one constant stabilizing force for the Cubs during the first two months of the season, it would have been Shota Imanaga.
That changed Monday night.
The southpaw endured by far his worst performance of the season, allowing eight earned runs on nine hits over just 4 ⅓ innings in an ugly blowout loss that immediately set the tone for the series.
Shota Imanaga entered the game with a sparkling 2.40 ERA and had logged at least five innings in 20 consecutive starts. Milwaukee quickly erased both trends.
The Brewers launched two towering home runs off the right-field video board and capitalized on the strong outward blowing winds at Wrigley Field. The outing resembled last postseason’s NLDS matchup against Milwaukee, when Imanaga surrendered four runs and two homers before exiting early.
This time was even worse.
“Shota (Imanaga) didn’t have a good night,” Counsell remarked. “He just didn’t have real good command, the command he usually has. It was, frankly, not being able to put the ball where he wanted to put it.”
Imanaga credited Milwaukee’s approach afterward.
“Overall, their game plan overcame my skills,” Shota Imanaga stated.
The eight earned runs doubled his previous season high and snapped his streak of dependable outings at the worst possible time. Pushing Imanaga’s ERA to 3.38.
The Cubs’ offense did little to help.
Chicago was unable to capitalize early or capitalize at all meaningfully. In all three games the leadoff hitter (Nico Hoerner) got on with no outs in the first and in the first two games Michael Busch got on as well. The Cubs couldn’t score either of them. The 2026 North Siders are a feast or famine team. The Cubs strikeout more than any team in MLB (134 SO). This team was not eating well this series, they struck out 36 times in three games.
In the series finale on Wednesday the Cubs had more errors than hits (three errors to two hits).
Nothing was going right for the Cubs this series, not the offense, starting pitching, outfield defense, catching defense, relief pitching, nothing and I mean nothing was going right for this club.
“We had a chance early to kind of get some momentum rolling, and weren’t able to capitalize,” Dansby Swanson stated. “They had a good plan and kept the ball on the ground and made the plays.”
“Dansby Swanson talking hitting pregame with Dustin Kelly (hitting coach) and Jose Javier (first base coach) Tuesday 5/19/26.”
Jacob Misiorowski Overpowers Cubs Lineup
By Tuesday night, the Brewers’ confidence only seemed to grow.
Flame-throwing youngster Jacob Misiorowski completely overpowered the Cubs in one of the most dominant starts of his young career, tossing six scoreless innings while allowing just three hits and striking out eight.
According to Brewers reporter Curt Hogg, Misiorowski became the first pitcher in Major League Baseball history to have five straight starts of eight plus strikeouts and no extra-base hits allowed.
He hasn’t allowed an extra-base hit in a month and five days, striking out 44 batters over the stretch.
The Cubs simply had no answer for his electric stuff.
Misiorowski fired 21 pitches at 100 mph or harder and relentlessly attacked the strike zone, throwing 53 strikes out of 74 pitches. Jacob Misiorowski improved his league leading strikeout total to 88 over 57 innings. Opponents are hitting just .160 with 32 hits, 4 home runs and 18 walks off Misiorowski in 2026.
“He got locked in,” said Counsell. “You’re stuck in-between trying to get in a count or attack him early, because he’s got strikeout stuff. He just pumps tons of strikes, and you’ve got to be aggressive. Sitting there hitting with two strikes, you’re going to be in trouble. He threw a lot of quality strikes.”
Nico Hoerner and Michael Busch both got on base to start the game, watching a combined 11 pitches before taking the bat off of their shoulder. They were the only two Cubs to see a three ball count against Misiorowski. The Cubs only saw five three ball counts all game, three of which came after Misiorowski left and two of those ended in backwards K’s.
The loss dropped Chicago to 2-8 over its last 10 games and officially knocked the Cubs out of first place in the division for the first time in nearly a month.
While Misiorowski dominated, Ben Brown battled through traffic and gave the Cubs a chance to stay in the game. Brown allowed three runs across five innings while striking out six.
“I was proud of Ben,” Counsell exclaimed. “They’ve got a lot of guys swinging it well and I thought Ben made some pretty good pitches, even on some hits. But he got in some trouble and made some big pitches.”
Brown kept the ball on the ground, inducing nine ground ball outs and surrendering three runs on a Brice Turang single, a wild pitch that scored Chourio and a Jake Bauers single in the third.
“I felt like I limited the damage well. If there is one thing I could have done better is after the wild pitch in the third, I probably could have executed better after that. But, other than that, I think I threw the ball pretty well,” Ben Brown said. “There are definitely things to learn from and grow from, but I’m pretty happy with the execution.”
“Ben Brown talking postgame after a solid outing Tuesday night.”
Milwaukee’s pitching depth and relentless pressure once again proved too much to handle.
Pete Crow-Armstrong’s Frustrating Week
The roughest week belonged to Crow-Armstrong.
After going viral earlier in the week for shouting profanities towards a fan at Rate Field, the young center fielder needed a series out of the negative spotlight.
On Tuesday, Crow-Armstrong dropped a flyball that he misjudged as he was reaching over his left shoulder before later allowing a single from David Hamilton skip under his glove on Wednesday, resulting in a Little League three run home run. Crow-Armstrong seemed to hesitate and jog back for the ball before turning on the jets to no avail; Hamilton scored easily.
“Look, he made a mistake, he made a bad play, he missed the ball in front of him,” Counsell said. “He got his feet caught in between; it’s like an infielder caught with an in-between hop. Things happen, and we’ve got to move on from them.”
Crow-Armstrong took responsibility afterward.
“He deserves better than I gave him today,” Crow-Armstrong said of pitcher Edward Cabrera. “At the same time, the pitching staff knows those are two very rare plays that happened the last two days. They know the way that I work and I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Yesterday and today are genuinely laughable,” Crow-Armstrong added. “One thing that I can fall back on is it’s never really a lack of focus. But trying too hard and trying to make up for the lack of production I’ve given this team and this city. I think anything physical usually starts mentally and that’s what I’m showing everybody right now. Just show up and keep pushing. But, that can’t happen, that kind of stuff just can’t happen.”
PCA : post-game interview – video by Coleman Robbins
Despite the recent struggles (going 1-11 in the series with six strikeouts), Crow-Armstrong said he feels confident offensively.
“Results don’t show it, but I feel really good in the box,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I’m still proud of my at-bats. I’m still showing up every day. The way that I work and the way everyone else works, the individual stuff will turn around.”
Edward Cabrera also defended Crow-Armstrong after the defensive miscue.
“Just keep his (Crow-Armstrong) head up high,” Cabrera said. “Those things are going to happen and it probably won’t be the last time it happens. It’s easy to applaud him when he makes the big plays, but just make sure that you support them. Everyone knows how great of a player Pete Crow-Armstrong is, so when I saw it I said it’s ok. Those are things that are going to happen; we’re humans and we’re going to make mistakes. The important thing is to support him.”
Cabrera exited after just one pitch in the fourth inning of Wednesday’s game because of a blister on his right middle finger.
“Once the blister is there, everything is difficult. Control is difficult, velocity is difficult, everything is difficult,” Edward Cabrera said he’s “not worried” about making his next start, “my mentality is that in five days I’m going to go out there and pitch again.”
Craig Counsell was a little more realistic, saying, “When a guy comes out of the game, the next start is obviously in question.”
Kyle Harrison threw seven innings of shutout baseball with 11 strikeouts, two hits, and one walk. The Cubs only saw three three-ball counts against Harrison. He pounded the zone with 94-65 PC-ST (69%) and 12 for 23 on first pitch strikes (52%).
“The fastball is different, it’s a really good fastball,” Counsell said. “It’s on you, it’s by you, it makes you cheat. Then the breaking ball becomes a good pitch. When he gets it up in the zone it’s just by you.”
Harrison was too much for the slumping Cubs to handle.
Entering the series finale on Wednesday, the Cubs ranked fourth in MLB in batting average against lefty pitchers (.270), with 134 hits (3rd), 15 home runs (11th), 71 RBI (6th), and a .775 OPS (5th). Kyle Harrison put that narrative to bed. Chicago isn’t going to win many games when they commit more errors than hits or runs recorded.
Brewers Continue Setting the Standard
The Cubs spent much of April looking like one of baseball’s better teams.
None of it mattered against Milwaukee.
Chicago ranks 22nd in batting average (.233) with runners in scoring position, despite ranking second in MLB in chances with runners in scoring position (580 plate appearances, behind the Pittsburgh Pirates, 590).
Meanwhile, Milwaukee leads baseball in limiting home runs (35) and ranks third in total strikeouts (462).
The Cubs rarely generated sustained offense, frequently fell behind in counts and struggled to capitalize on scoring opportunities. The Cubs’ anemic offense put up five runs in 27 innings of baseball.
“They’re a good team and they’re playing well,” Counsell begrudgingly said. “Look at the play Nico made in the ninth inning. When you don’t swing the bats and don’t score runs the baseball game is not going to look good for you. We’re in a funk right now and it’s up to us to change it.”
Moisés Ballesteros’ struggles also reflected the Cubs’ recent offensive downturn. After slashing .382/.426/.745 in April, Moisés Ballesteros is hitting just .075/.136/.150 in May.
Alex Bregman, however, showed his veteran leadership remaining confident that the Cubs would recover.
“Obviously we didn’t play the way we wanted to this series,” Bregman said. “Over the course of 162 the cream always rises to the top. I believe in this group, if anything it’s a good thing. We’ll go back to the basics and get back to executing in all phases of the game, not worried at all. We have a great group here. Guys have been through ups and downs and know how this game works.”
Bregman also pointed to his championship experience for perspective.
“One of the years we won the World Series we got swept in Oakland in like September right before the playoffs started,” Bregman remarked. “Just kind of locks you back in and gets you back focused on the things you need to be focused on.”
That leadership has to turn into production at some point soon for the Cubs veterans. Alex Bregman (.249), Nico Hoerner (.264), Ian Happ (.215), Dansby Swanson (.191), and Jameson Taillon (2-3, 4.97 ERA, and an MLB leading 16 HR allowed).
Meanwhile, Milwaukee continued their almost decade long dominance over the Cubs.
Chicago has not finished ahead of the Brewers in a full season since 2018, and this week only reinforced the growing gap between the two clubs despite vastly different payroll structures.
“They’re a good team again, no question about it,” Counsell said. “That’s where it’s at.”
Now the Cubs are left searching for answers before a promising season slips further away.
