Cubs winning despite patchy offense

Early in yesterday's game against Pissburgh, Jim Deshaies was talking about the Cubs recent run of lack of offense and noted, positively, that the Cubs last five losses had been in games started by Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Zack Wheeler, Jesus Luzardo and Paul Skenes. The implication was that it's easy to dismiss the Cubs recent lack of punch because they were facing top pitchers.

I don't think Jack Flaherty deserves to be in a list with Skubal, Wheeler or Skenes, and Luzardo had given up 20 earned runs in his last two starts, so, whatever.

I mean, if you want to take it that way, fine. But when the Cubs are in the playoffs, these are the kinds of pitchers who will start the most important games against them.

I'm not saying that the Cubs should have gone 5-0 in those games. But something between there and 0-5 would have been nice.

The Cubs have clear pitching needs at the trade deadline. They are hopefully going to get Shōta Imanaga back in a couple of weeks. He's set to throw a rehab start at Iowa this week and they'll see how that goes.

They'll still need another starting pitcher, and even though the bullpen ERA has been great for more than a month, there's still a need for at least one more big arm for the back end.

But given that they have the largest run differential in baseball (+104, one run better than the Yankees), clearly they don't need another bat, right?

Well...

Since June 4 they have scored three or fewer runs nine times in 12 games. They have been shutout twice in that span. They swept the Rockies, who are at least one of the worst teams of all-time, in a three game series May 26-28 but scored only nine runs total. The Rockies have given up nine or more runs in a single game 15 times this year.

They won three of four against the lowly Pirates but scored just nine runs in those four games.

Craig Counsell continues to play the desiccating husk of Justin Turner against lefty pitchers, and yesterday he let Turner bat with runners at second and third and two outs in the ninth inning, despite having Kyle Tucker available. That made at least some sense. If you bat Tucker there, the Pirates are just going to walk him to load the bases. OK. Got it.

But in the ninth, he pinch hit Tucker with the Manfred Man(n) on second and nobody out and the Pirates were able to just walk him. Huh? Whatever.

With Matt Shaw's return, the lineup doesn't have a gaping hole in it anymore. Shaw's been solid-to-acceptable. He's hit .264/.309/.379 with a homer, five RBI, seven steals in eight tries and he's struck out 17 times against five walks in 87 at bats. He's no longer overmatched, but the production is less than ideal at third, especially since you get so little out of second base other than Nico's hitting a single 28 percent of the time that he bats, and after a great start to the season the catchers are hitting like catchers again, especially with Miguel Amaya on the injured list.

So is there a move the Cubs could make that would give them a middle of the order bat, an extra right handed bat so the Cubs could dump Turner, and a guy who could take the heat off of Shaw during a pennant race? Can you find all of that in one?

I guess, but the guy would have to be affordable (you know Tom) and in the final year of his contract so the Cubs could trade players for him and then let him go for nothing after the season. (The Jed Hoyer special.)

Well, I think I know a guy.