Craig Counsell is on Decade 4 in professional baseball after starting as a 21-year-old in A-ball in 1992.

Over those 32 years, he has seen quite a bit and gone through plenty of difficult stretches.

It’s not his nature to overreact – or even to react with much emotion at all. He doesn’t storm into his office after brutal losses to throw chairs and you won’t catch him tossing bats into the showers like the coach from “Bull Durham” to try to ignite a fire in his players.

It’s that steady nature and perspective that the Cubs want right now as they limp their way through what has become a really difficult six-week stretch. The team has lost 9 of their last 10 series and the offense sits in last place in many offensive categories since the end of April, including batting average and average with runners in scoring position.

“I think you want steadiness,” Jed Hoyer said. “You hear over and over and over: players, they need the same guy every day. I think the volatility of a manager, it puts the team in a weird place. You want someone that’s going to come in every day, positive, [is] going to have the same message every day. And I think that that gives players a comfort that they’ll get out of this.

“And also you have to have the manager that has the right feel for when to talk to the team, when not to talk to the team. There’s an art to that. There’s a right time for the message to the group. You do it too often and you lose your effectiveness over the length of the season.

“So I have as much confidence as I could in any person that he has the right feel for that and I know his demeanor is right for the marathon.”

[WATCH: Jed Hoyer delivers state of the Cubs]

The Cubs woke up Tuesday morning in sole possession of last place in the NL Central – yet only 2 games out of the final Wild-Card spot.

The National League is bunched up with 9 teams competing for the 3 Wild-Card spots (plus the 3 division leaders).

So even though things have looked bleak for the Cubs over the past month-and-a-half, they still hold the power to turn their season around and get where they want to go. After all, more than half the schedule remains – 88 games after Tuesday’s contest.

“The great part about baseball is that there is a game the next day and that also requires you to keep perspective and not spend too much time looking backwards,” Counsell said. “I think that’s what we do and that’s what players are taught to do and learn to do.

“We learn from the past but in this game, you got to put your eyes forward pretty quickly.”

After another tough loss on Sunday, two of the team’s veteran leaders – Jameson Taillon and Dansby Swanson – shared the same sentiment: Talk is cheap and the team needs to start putting up wins, since that’s all that matters.

At the same time, the Cubs players have remained positive and confident that their luck will turn and their performance will see some positive regression. Nobody is throwing their teammates under the bus or pointing fingers.

“What our guys have been good at doing is you show up the next day with that game in the rearview mirror and worrying about what’s going to happen and how you’re going to try to make it better or just do a little bit better,” Counsell said. “Think about what’s going to happen next, rather than what’s happened in the past.

“That attitude helps. And it gets hard to do, for sure. But I think our guys have done a good job and will continue to. We’re going to go on a good stretch here and there’s still going to be more challenges ahead.”

The Cubs hired Counsell exactly for this reason – be the steadying presence that helps keep the ship afloat during the inevitable lulls over a long season.

Every member of the Cubs organization wishes that this particular lull did not eat up a large chunk of the schedule but that’s the reality they are living in.

Counsell doesn’t waste time looking at the past – he is focused on what he can control. That includes trying to understand it when a packed house at Wrigley Field rains boos down on the team as another bullpen implosion resulted in yet another gut-punch of a loss Monday night.

“Fans are emotional and that’s part of buying the ticket is you get that privilege,” Counsell said. “There’s no question it doesn’t feel good. But it’s been a tough stretch and the fans are voicing their displeasure and that’s OK.

“However we interpret it, we’ve got to take it the right way and use it to a positive. That’s our job with it. You got to be able to process that, take that and use it in a good way.”