CHICAGO — Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer glanced from the dugout to the visitors’ side Monday morning, where the Milwaukee Brewers were doing light pregame work.

It’s not quite at the point of the year where Hoyer and the Cubs are regularly checking the scores of other National League playoff-contending teams. Despite the Cubs’ recent stretch, Hoyer still believes they are well-positioned for a postseason.

“If it was totally predictable, it wouldn’t be fun, right?” Hoyer said. “There’s a joy in that. If we just took the projections we had beginning of the season and that was all that happened, that would not be worth watching. … There is an unpredictability, that’s why some seasons are special or not special.”

Cubs fans would certainly enjoy watching the final six weeks of the regular season play out differently from what the team has shown over the last month. Monday’s first game, though, repeated many of the issues that have plagued the Cubs lately: their stars not hitting, the offense failing to take advantage with runners on base, and losing ground to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The “Let’s Go Brewers” chants started early and rang through Wrigley Field often on Monday afternoon.

Cubs fans attempted to counter those efforts by booing to drown out the Brewers and their crew — and at times turned those boos onto their own team. The Cubs gave the Wrigley faithful among the 38,971 plenty of reasons to voice their displeasure in an uninspired 7-0 loss to Milwaukee in Game 1 of the planned doubleheader. The second game was postponed due to the weather.

The Cubs (70-54) finished with just two hits, including Owen Caissie’s first big-league hit on a single to left-center field in the seventh inning. Kyle Tucker went hitless in four at-bats, dropping his average to .182 in his last 26 games. After the loss, manager Craig Counsell said Tucker would not be in the lineup for Game 2 and potentially not play Wednesday either as they “take a little step back” to give him a reset amid his struggles.

Some of the Cubs fans’ boos Monday were again directed at Tucker following multiple at-bats. Tucker has hit only one home run since June 28.

“The fans are frustrated and Kyle’s frustrated,” Counsell said. “And it’s unfortunate because when you make outs, it doesn’t look great, but he’s trying. It’s not clicking. … We’re not coming up with solutions for him, and he’s not coming up with solutions. So, sometimes you have to take some steps back to go forward again.”

For a Cubs team trying to build some positive momentum, Monday got off to an inauspicious start when rookie starter Cade Horton departed during the third inning because of a blister on his right middle finger. Horton had been a menace to opposing hitters the last six weeks.

In that span, Horton allowed only five runs in 40 innings (1.13 ERA) and was a stabilizing presence in the Cubs’ rotation. He got the ball in Monday's game against the Brewers in a huge five-game series that represents the final regular-season meeting between the division rivals.

Counsell and head trainer Nick Frangella came out to check on Horton in the third inning after he allowed a one-out home run to Brice Turang followed by a Caleb Durbin double. He threw a couple of test pitches under their watch and remained in the game, but Horton’s command remained off.

Following William Contreras’ groundout, Horton threw seven consecutive balls to walk Christian Yelich and hit Andrew Vaughn to load the bases. It prompted another mound visit by Counsell and Frangella that resulted in Horton coming out of the game. Left-hander Drew Pomeranz took over and forced Blake Perkins to ground out to third baseman Matt Shaw to end the threat.

Horton’s blister developed from a callus he had the past week, finally giving way during the second inning when he threw a slider. It continued to bother him whenever he threw a slider or changeup in the third — pitches he rips off the seams with that finger — and ultimately realized he couldn’t keep trying to pitch through it, a frustrating moment given the magnitude of the game.

“The competitor in me wants to be out there and try to give my team a chance to win,” Horton said. “But obviously it’s probably better looking at it from a bigger picture to go ahead and call it before it gets worse and end up missing a lot of time for it.”

Horton said he experiences a blister in that spot almost every year, calling it a common theme. He typically treats the blister with Stan’s Rodeo Ointment and believes this won’t prohibit him from making his next start.

The Cubs’ continued struggles to score runs were apparent again Monday. Managing just two hits against starter Freddy Peralta and the Brewers bullpen didn’t help the number of opportunities. But they squandered their best chance in the fourth when they produced three consecutive one-out walks. Caissie’s full-count strikeout, whiffing at Peralta’s changeup, and Nico Hoerner’s lineout to right field ended the threat.

The forecast of inclement weather postponed the planned Game 2 on Monday. The makeup game will start at 1:20 p.m. CDT Tuesday as the first game of a split doubleheader. Tuesday’s originally scheduled game will take place as planned at 7:05 p.m.

As much as the Cubs’ mantra centers on not-if-but-when this offensive group gets going again, the days remaining in the regular season continue to tick away. The Brewers’ scorching stretch has the division title seemingly unattainable at this point. Wasting their playoff standing, holding the top National League wild-card spot by a game over the San Diego Padres, would be an especially painful collapse given how well the Cubs played the first three months.

“You never know what day a hot streak starts and a cold streak begins, I keep saying that over and over, and you’ve got to come to the ballpark optimistic every day that we’ll start scoring runs,” Hoyer said. “We have one of the best position playing groups in baseball, offensively and defensively. … But there’s no denying that we haven’t played our best baseball for about a month. And every day you’ve got to come to the ballpark hoping that it turns around.”

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