The frustrations have worn on Isaac Paredes — he isn’t afraid to admit it.

Since joining the Cubs, the 25-year-old third baseman is hitting just .158 with a .545 OPS. Acquired to provide more offensive and defensive stability at the hot corner, his bat has been below the levels that he had reached before being acquired from Tampa Bay.

“Yes, difficult, of course, like anything,” Paredes said. “It’s a professional job and when you don’t have results, you get a lot of thoughts in your head, and it becomes a difficult moment.”

Has the change in scenery been the root of the issues? After all, this was an accomplished hitter that the Cubs traded for — and one they paid a fairly steep price for, Christopher Morel and prospects Hunter Bigge and Ty Johnson.

“No, no I don’t think it’s anything like that,” he said.

[WATCH: Cubs rally from 7-run deficit to sweep Pirates]

While Paredes might deny it, there’s no quantifiable measure for the mental side of the game. You can track bat speed, exit velocity, launch angle — almost anything in the game, but the mental side is still a measurement in a game that you can’t track.

“I think change is hard for everybody,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Isaac was in a place where he had had [success]. I think you could say the same thing about Morel — had success and [was] comfortable and you don’t necessarily know how the change is going to affect you.

“I mean, I don’t think you’d use it as an excuse, and none of us use it as an excuse, but you kind of don’t know. Even when you’re going through, you don’t know, right?”

That’s why Paredes is treating this patch like a normal cold spell that every player encounters throughout a 162-game season. Just because you’re a .250 hitter — what Paredes hit last season — it does not mean you’ll go 1-for-4 every single game.

There are games or stretches where it might look like a player is playing a video game on the easiest difficulty level — and patches of the season where the hitter might feel like he’ll never hit again.

“I think we all have to go through struggles to have success,” Paredes said. “You have to go through failure and learn from that.”

The sweep over the Pirates might have been a good start for Paredes. He reached base in all three games, including a home run and collected a clutch base knock in the 9th inning of Wednesday afternoon’s wild rally. On Monday, he was 2-for-5 with a solo home run, 3 runs scored, 2 RBI and a walk in the Cubs’ 18-8 win.

But the key is building from it.

Paredes had a big game earlier in the month against Minnesota but followed that up with a 4-for-33 (.121) stretch over his next 10 games — 2 of those hits came two days after that Twins game.

He’s reached base in 6 straight games and that’s the type of results he’s searching for. Not a flash-in-the-pan game, but rather sustained offensive output. That will make him feel comfortable about where he’s headed.

“Now it’s about having multiple games with results to find yourself and be the player that you were before,” Paredes said. “I think that will take some time, but soon we’ll be where we want to be.”