CINCINNATI — Blame the foul ball into the seats that wasn’t or the foul ball off catcher Willson Contreras’ foot that was ruled fair for a groundout.
But the little things that went against the Cubs to help bury them in an 8-6 loss Sunday to the Reds can’t hide the bigger picture: They haven’t played well for more than a month.
And it’s starting to cost them in a National League Central crammed tighter than a Cub with a man in scoring position.
‘‘Blaming it on little things that go wrong is making excuses,’’ left-hander Jon Lester said after looking dominant for most of a start that petered out five batters into the sixth inning. ‘‘We haven’t played well consistently. I don’t know what to make of that. I don’t know what to say about that.’’
The loss dropped the Cubs to 16-21 since they stood a season-high 11 games above .500 on May 22 and dropped them into a first-place tie with the Brewers in the division.
They’ve lost five consecutive road series and finished 14-15 in June, their first losing month in more than two years. That snapped a streak of 12 winning months that was their longest in more than 100 years.
‘‘It could have been a lot worse,’’ manager Joe Maddon said. ‘‘That’s the team we’ve been the entire month. We haven’t played well enough to be better than that.’’
The tone was set by a leadoff walk in the Reds’ first, followed by an error on left fielder Kyle Schwarber for losing a fly ball off the end of his glove. Eugenio Suarez followed with one of the longest home runs in the history of Great American Ball Park — over the batter’s eye to the deck of the steamboat behind center field.
Lester retired 14 batters in a row after that, but the Cubs never got closer than 4-3. They went 2-for-12 with men in scoring position, dropping their NL-worst average in such situations to .240. And it was only that good because of Jason Heyward’s too-little-too-late three-run homer in the ninth.
A key play came with two on and two outs in the third, when a foul pop by Anthony Rizzo went off a fan’s glove for what looked to be a routine foul at the rail. But it was ruled fan interference after a replay challenge, ending the inning and infuriating the Cubs.
The explanation?
‘‘Call New York because I’m tired of getting fined, quite frankly,’’ Maddon said. ‘‘I want my grandkids to go to college.’’
Meanwhile, the Reds — who are in last place in the Central — have won all three series against the Cubs this season.
‘‘We’ve been together, most of us, for four years, some of us five years now,’’ Heyward said. ‘‘The division is very familiar with us. They’re going to know how to stack teams and be ready to compete against us. I’m not saying it’s all about us, but that’s a respect thing.’’
The division is separated by 5½ games top to bottom.
‘‘We’ve just got to find new ways,’’ Heyward said. ‘‘We’re going to fight. It’s never going to be perfect; it never is. You’ve just got to try to get lucky and find a way to hang in there.’’
