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The Chicago Cubs have lost five of their past seven games, but manager Craig Counsell said he can’t wait to get to the ballpark every day.

“These are the fun games,” he said Sunday after a 4-3 home loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I want to get to the park and see what happens. (Saturday’s 4-3 win) was fun, and today we just could not get that one thing to go our way, but we come right back out tomorrow. This is the fun time of the season.”

Sunday’s Chicago loss allowed the Philadelphia Phillies (83-67), who beat the Atlanta Braves 9-4 earlier Sunday, to move into a tie with the Cubs (83-67) for the first wild-card spot in the National League.

Chicago will try to move closer to a playoff spot Monday night when it hosts Atlanta (88-62) in the first contest of a three-game series.

The Cubs knew the Phillies had won Sunday when they were playing, but the players know they can’t let that affect their play.

“You are aware of it, but it doesn’t change what you do once you are on the field,” said Chicago left-hander Matthew Boyd, who took the loss Sunday. “It is a privilege to be in the position we are in. Our job as players is to play our best baseball. The opponent doesn’t really matter.”

The Cubs fought back from an early deficit to the Pirates with a two-run home run by Miguel Amaya, but the famous Wrigley Field winds were no friend to them as three drives fell short at the warning track.

“Offensively, we were just not able to create anything today,” Counsell said. “Some days, (the winds) play for you and some days they don’t. We can be mad about it, but there is nothing we can do about it.”

The Cubs will send David Peterson (7-8, 5.28 ERA) to the mound on Monday. The southpaw, who joined Chicago via trade from the New York Mets in June, has not won since beating Washington on Aug. 12.

Chicago has lost four straight Peterson starts.

The 31-year-old is 44-38 with a 4.32 ERA in 160 career regular-season appearances (135 starts). He is 3-5 with a 5.54 ERA in 14 games (13 starts) against the Braves.

Atlanta will counter with Reynaldo Lopez (4-4, 4.13 ERA) after pushing fellow right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver (0-3, 7.71) to Wednesday’s start.

Lopez last pitched on Wednesday and yielded six runs on seven hits and three walks and five strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings in a 7-2 loss to the visiting Tampa Bay Rays. It was Lopez’s first appearance since July 26 after he missed 34 games due to left knee inflammation.

An All-Star in 2024, Lopez is 3-1 in his career against the Cubs with a 3.25 ERA, 33 strikeouts and eight walks across 27 2/3 innings over 10 appearances (four starts).

The Braves are in first place in the NL East, five games ahead of the second-place Phillies.

Atlanta second baseman Ozzie Albies added to his franchise record on Saturday when he collected his 14th sacrifice fly this season. The franchise single-season mark previously was held by Hank Aaron and Del Crandall with 12 each in 1960. Albies recorded his 13th on Aug. 25.

“It’s cool, man,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “That’s a unique record. A sacrifice-fly record is not one that you hear about all the time. So it’s a cool stat, cool record, because that’s a very productive out right there, and that is what we preach.

“Yeah, I would have never guessed that Ozzie would set the record for sac flies, just because he’s not a guy that hits long fly balls and that type of thing,” Weiss continued. “But I think in those situations, that’s part of his approach, is to get something that he can lift and get that run in. And that’s what you want.”

–Field Level Media

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