Plate patience and an approach that yields walks can be an indicator of a healthy offense.

For the Chicago Cubs, it’s been a frustrating trend of putting runners on base at a high rate who are then consistently stranded. Finding a balance between working counts and seeking out moments to go into a more aggressive swing mode is a work in progress for an offense that has too often been a weakness.

Two days after president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer expressed the need for the team to not only win series but produce some series sweeps, the Los Angeles Angels completed the sweep with the Cubs’ 3-1 loss Thursday.

The Cubs (26-36) begin the final leg of the 10-game West Coast trip in San Francisco Friday night with the sixthworst winning percentage in Major League Baseball. Only four teams have more losses than the Cubs: St. Louis Cardinals (37), Colorado Rockies (38), Kansas City Royals (44) and Oakland A’s (50).

“As a whole, we’ve got to be more accountable to our at-bats,” manager David Ross said Thursday. “There comes a time when you have to look deep in yourself and find a way to get on whether it’s a bunt for a hit, get hit by a pitch. I don’t have the answer. Just as a collective group we’ve got to find a way to produce runs.”

Even with the Cubs’ overall struggles the past five weeks, they still rank third in the big leagues in walk percentage.

The Cubs entered Thursday having seen 9,583 pitches this season, second-most in Major League Baseball behind the Los Angeles Dodgers (9,637), despite playing fewer games than 21 other teams. They also lead the majors in pitches per plate appearance (4.12).

However, the Cubs are one of the least aggressive teams early in the count. While it helps them get guys on and create run-scoring chances by taking pitches and generating walks, a more passive approach hasn’t helped as the organization envisioned. Only five teams swing at fewer first pitches than the Cubs.

And when they do swing at the first pitch of an at-bat, the Cubs’ .277 average is the lowest in baseball as one of just three teams (A’s and Detroit Tigers) to hit below .300 on the first pitch. They also produce the worst slugging percentage (.396) in those situations.

Ross has been looking into these issues too.

“We’re getting on base and walking is key, but also taking some risk out front and when to do that is something we need to be better at as we’re talking through those things and trying to find that balance,” Ross said. “The short answer is we haven’t as of late. But I don’t want to take a positive and turn it into a negative. There’s a lot of little things we can get better at offensively. We’ve focused a lot on the bullpen as of late and their struggles, and I think we’ve got to give them some breathing room as well.

“Offensively, we’ve played a lot of tight games and we’re asking for perfect games out of a lot of guys and that’s just not baseball.”

In some ways, Seiya Suzuki — whose understanding of the strike zone has been elite since his debut last year — embodies the Cubs’ struggles to strike the right balance between working the count and attacking hittable pitches early. Of the 315 players with at least 100 plate appearances in 2023, Suzuki’s first-pitch swing percentage is fourth lowest in MLB at 10.6%. Conversely, Suzuki’s BB% is third-best on the Cubs among their starters.

Suzuki looked more aggressive in Thursday’s loss, swinging at the first pitch in two of his four at-bats. He collected the Cubs’ lone multi-hit game, which included a double for his first extra-base hit of the month. As their regular cleanup hitter, the Cubs need more power production and run scoring out of Suzuki, who has recorded 19 RBIs in 49 games.

“I know there’s a lot of instances where there’s runners in scoring position, so I feel like it’s my job to get those runners in. And when I don’t do that, it doesn’t really go our way and we don’t win games,” Suzuki said Thursday through interpreter Toy Matsushita. “So I do feel a little liable, but I’m not trying to be too conscious of where I’m hitting in the lineup. I want to make sure I do my job every day I go out there.”

The Cubs have experienced some unluckiness with hardhit balls not landing for hits. But they can’t always point to that as an encouraging sign if the offense collectively doesn’t start to turn things around. Nico Hoerner said he appreciates the hitting staff staying consistent through the lows, which he acknowledges can be hard to do.

Players like to say hitting is contagious, both hot streaks and slumps. Hoerner acknowledged at times he’s gotten caught up in thinking about things he can’t control. He knows re-centering on taking care of his own at-bats each game while playing hard with good defense is the best way to positively contribute.

“It really comes down to all of us doing our own specific things we can control,” Hoerner said. “It’s extremely challenging to stay positive without results. You can say all the right things and be a good person, but the game doesn’t care if you’re nice at a certain point, right?

“You need to make it happen and there’s no lack of effort and trying harder doesn’t always help a lot either.”