Chicago Cubs first baseman Michael Busch was supposed to be a focal point of an offense that entered the season with some lofty expectations.

The 28-year-old, who clubbed 34 home runs and drove in 90 runs in 2025, was mired in a 0-for-30 slump that prompted manager Craig Counsell to keep him out of the starting lineup in Sunday’s 7-6, walk-off win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field.

“He’s 0-for-30. Simple as that,” Counsell said before Sunday’s contest. “You can say there’s a lot of line drives in there, but you get to a place of playing every day for a week and not having any results, and it wears on you. It wears on you mentally as much as anything.

“He’s just got stuck a little bit, and is not having any success and not getting any results, and 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.
He’s available to play, and there’s a good chance that you’re going to see him later in the game.”

That opportunity arose in the eighth inning, with the Cubs trailing 6-4 with runners at first and second, two outs and right-hander Justin Lawrence on the mound.

Counsell brought in the left-handed hitting Busch to pinch hit for Matt Shaw, who was making his first career start at first base. He flared a 96.8 mph fastball into shallow left field that scored Seiya Suzuki from second, and Dansby Swanson came around to score from first on a throwing error from left fielder Bryan Reynolds.

Photos: Chicago Cubs 7, Pittsburgh Pirates 6

“It felt really good,” Busch said after the game. “When you have the day off, just always trying to stay ready for any spot, I think that’s part of this game. Just kind of trying to do whatever you can to help the team win and feeling like I did that today is pretty cool.”

The Cubs’ bats had sputtered to start the year. They had scored 59 runs before Sunday’s game, which was 19th in the majors, and had just two qualified batters with an OPS over .650. The struggles compounded over the first two games against the Pirates, where they went a combined 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position, stranded 27 baserunners and scored three runs in the two losses.

Busch, with his prolonged cold stretch, seemed like the poster child for the Cubs’ offensive woes, and they were even more pronounced when the Pirates jumped on starter Jameson Taillon early. Oneil Cruz hit a leadoff home run to give Pittsburgh a quick lead. Taillon allowed a single, then walked Spencer Horwitz and hit rookie Konnor Griffin with a pitch to load the bases. Brandon Lowe hit a grand slam after a pair of strikeouts, the first of his two home runs, to stake the Pirates to a 5-0 lead.

“I put us in a pretty bad hole there,” Taillon said. “Just wasn’t very good, wasn’t attacking. After that inning, it’s kind of like, it can’t really get any worse, so there’s almost a little bit of a weird freedom in that, like, ‘Got nothing to lose, let’s be super aggressive here and see what we can make out of today.’”

The Cubs desperately needed length out of Taillon, too. They placed right-handed reliever Hunter Harvey on the 15-day injured list with right triceps inflammation and selected the contract of left-hander Charlie Barnes from Triple-A Iowa. Harvey’s IL stint is the fourth that the Cubs’ pitching staff has sustained in the last week.

Barnes, 30, spent most of the past three seasons in Korea with the Lotte Giants and signed as a minor-league free agent with the Cubs.

“It’s (to) prioritize some length today and just make sure we’re covered as much as anything,” Counsell said before the game. “(Barnes) pitched well in minor-league camp, pitched well to start the season, and he was available on a length option today.”

Taillon, though, settled in after that grand slam, allowing just two hits over the next 4 1/3 innings. He finished with 10 strikeouts in the game, becoming the first Cubs starter to strike out at least 10 while allowing six or more runs since Jon Lieber did so on Sept. 10, 2000.

Taillon’s performance, with the wind blowing out at Wrigley Field, allowed the Cubs to remain in striking distance.

“In a weird way, (it) felt like a game we were going to win and come back from,” Taillon said.

The Cubs did chip away. Dansby Swanson and Moisés Ballesteros hit a pair of solo home runs in the third inning, and Alex Bregman drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth. Swanson scored in the seventh on a heads-up baserunning play during a bases-loaded popup from Bregman to second base.

That put the Cubs in position to rally in the eighth with Busch’s single. The Cubs then loaded the bases in the ninth and walked it off on Carson Kelly’s single. Busch snapping his 0-for-30 slump, though, is a welcome sign for the Cubs, despite it not being a certainty that he’s officially back as the top-of-the-order slugger.

“It just, I think, lets you take a big exhale,” Counsell said after the game. “It doesn’t give you anything tomorrow or the next day, but it lets you take a big exhale, and you contribute to a win and for every guy in there, you desperately want to do that.”