The Cubs had a golden opportunity Sunday to inch closer to the final playoff spot in the National League.

But they weren’t able to accomplish that as the offense disappeared during a 7-2 loss to the Marlins in Miami.

The Atlanta Braves – who currently own the final Wild-Card spot in the NL – had already lost early Sunday afternoon. The Cubs will remain 5.5 games behind the Braves in the Wild-Card standings.

The Cubs entered Sunday having already claimed a series win over the Marlins thanks to a pair of wins in the first 2 games, including a 14-2 victory Saturday.

But that offense could not carry that momentum over to the final game of the series and a sweep was not in the cards. The Cubs scored only 1 run until the top of the 9th when Ian Happ drove home Mike Tauchman with a 2-out double.

“We had a bad day offensively,” Craig Counsell told reporters in Miami after the game. “We just didn’t do much. … We didn’t miss out on anything with hard-hit balls today. They just kinda beat us with the fastball and just didn’t have a good day on offense at all.”

[WATCH: Counsell, Assad sum up series finale against Marlins]

A win Sunday also would’ve put the Cubs over .500 for the first time since late-May but the loss dropped their overall record to 65-66.

Javier Assad gave up a pair of homers in the 1st inning but settled in and allowed just 1 run over the next 6 innings in his longest start of the season.

Julian Merryweather was tagged for 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning – including a truly bizarre play – to put the game out of reach.

The Cubs have won 3 straight series – and 6 out of 7 series in August – but they will likely need to find a way to rattle off a sweep or two to climb into the final playoff spot in the NL.

FanGraphs pegs the Cubs’ playoff odds at 3.8%.

“It’s a good series – it’s a road win series but had a chance to make it a great series today and couldn’t finish it,” Counsell said. “A little reminiscent of the Toronto series, I think, where we could’ve finished it off and just couldn’t do it. But winning series is a good thing, we’ll just keep doing that.”

The Cubs head to Pittsburgh for a 3-game series beginning Monday.