Is This The Turning Point For Michael Busch, Cubs’ Offense?

Between last regular season and the ensuing playoff run, Michael Busch was arguably the Chicago Cubs’ top hitter.

Busch recorded a a 140 wRC+ and an .866 OPS, both the top marks among Cubs regulars. That wRC+ actually finished ninth among qualified big league hitters.

He then went out and put together a 1.128 OPS in 31 postseason plate appearances. Overall, he was as dangerous a hitter as Chicago had in its lineup.

That stellar season at the plate began with an excellent start to the year. Exactly a year ago Sunday, his OPS rose above .900 and stayed there for basically the rest of the month. He had some tough stretches, as every batter does, but he remained a strong presence in the order.

But so far in 2026, Busch has looked like a different hitter — and not for the better.

He had a three-hit Opening Day but quickly cooled off. In fact, entering Sunday, he was mired in an 0-for-30 slump. In 59 plate appearances, he’d slashed .118/.220/.157 with zero extra-base hits since Opening Day.

Obviously, Busch didn’t want to begin his season like this. He does feel like there’s been times even through this stretch where he has felt good at the plate and has put together good at-bats. But when the results aren’t there, it can be difficult to deal with.

”One of the challenging things about this game is you want to give yourself some grace, but you want to get in there and work and continue to get better, to find out kind of what’s going on,” Busch said. “think back to the minor leagues a lot of just, like, through those times, you just continue to work, continue to grind and continue to be mentally strong and work through those times. All of a sudden, you kind of find yourself out of it, but it doesn’t make it any easier sometimes.”

A Reset Went a Long Way

Things had gotten to the point where, in a key at-bat in the seventh inning of Saturday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, manager Craig Counsell chose to pinch hit for Busch. Then, when the lineup was released for Sunday’s series finale at Wrigley Field, Busch’s name wasn’t on it.

”This is just trying to give a reset to a player that’s a really good hitter that probably just [needs] a mental break a little bit,” Counsell said Sunday morning. “He’s just got stuck a little bit and is not having any success and not getting any results. I think sometimes, just a day where you’re not in the lineup and you can go in the cage and work and not prepare for a game that day, but prepare to kind of make things better here is helpful and puts you at ease.”

”Just going to continue to do what I’ve kind of been doing,” Busch said about not being in the lineup. “Just ready off the bench, whenever they need me, honestly. I think getting out of myself and just focusing on, how can I help this team today? I think in this locker room, it’s pretty evident everybody’s in this to help the Cubbies win, and I think that’s the mindset going into today and the rest of the season.”

Counsell did make it a point to mention Busch was available off the bench. He even said there was a good chance Busch would enter the game later on.

That came to fruition when he pinch hit in the bottom of the eighth. Busch came to the plate with two men on and two men out, with the Cubs trailing by two. Clearly, Counsell wasn’t saving him for a softer landing spot. He still believed Busch could get the job done in the biggest spot of the game to that point.

And that’s exactly what Busch did. In a 1-1 count, he dropped a ball into left-center field to bring in a run, before another scored via a throwing error. Just like that, the game was tied, and a slumping Busch was the one who delivered (Carson Kelly then delivered the walk-off hit the next inning for the 7-6 ‘W’).

That one had to feel good for Busch, right?

”It felt really good,” he told reporters in the clubhouse postgame.

Busch Not The Only Cub Looking For A Turnaround

Chicago’s loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday was tough to swallow considering the chances they had to win that game. The Cubs left 16 men on base and went 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position, with Alex Bregman’s game-tying single in the ninth representing the lone hit.

They held only a 92 wRC+ as a team after that game, No. 22 in MLB. That’s a troubling number on its own, and things weren’t much better with runners in scoring position, where their 93 wRC+ ranked 21st.

It’s just been a struggle to get the big hit. Considering they hadn’t yet recorded a comeback victory entering Sunday, hoping for big hits to come after Chicago fell behind felt more like wishful thinking.

But, after that loss Saturday where the offense failed to back up another solid pitching performance, the Cubs maintained their belief that they’d get back on track. Counsell and Bregman used similar language when discussing that, with both saying they know things will “turn.”

”Just got to keep fighting the fight,” Bregman added. “I don’t think anybody’s waiting on it. We’re all, every single day, getting after it, trying to turn it. I feel like, over the course of 162, the cream will rise to the top, and we’ll play good baseball. We haven’t done that so far. We know we’re capable of playing way better than we’ve played, and we just got to execute better in those situations.”

So, perhaps Sunday can be the turning point, not just for Busch but for the offense as a whole.

Nico Hoerner has been excellent. The catching tandem of Kelly and Miguel Amaya has been very productive offensively. Moisés Ballesteros and Michael Conforto have put up good numbers in a bit more limited of roles.

Behind them, though, the Cubs just haven’t been getting enough. Most of their everyday players are below average in terms of wRC+. That’s especially true for two left-handed hitters expected to be key pieces of the lineup in Busch (25 wRC+) and Pete Crow-Armstrong (43 wRC+).

The obvious caveat with all of this is it’s still so early in the season. Chicago hasn’t yet played 10% of its season. Hoerner and Bregman lead the team with 69 plate appearances apiece. A lot more baseball remains.

The players try to keep that perspective, even when the results aren’t there. That’s how they survive the 162-game marathon and its inevitable cold spells.

Yes, the Cubs are currently in last place in the NL Central, but they’re only one game below .500 and two back of the division-leading Pirates. There doesn’t necessarily need to be a rush to get to that turning point offensively. It’s not the end of the world if Sunday’s comeback isn’t it for Chicago, because there’s still so much of the season left to play.

But, after struggling to find their rhythm at the plate, the Cubs would certainly welcome it if Sunday becomes that launching pad.

“I think everybody knows in here that we can play a lot better baseball,” Bregman said, ”and we will.”