The Cubs finished last season with the 6th-most runs in all of baseball (and the 3rd-most in the National League).

With essentially the entire lineup back plus the addition of Michael Busch, the Cubs came into 2024 optimistic that their offense would once again be near the top of the league.

Only it hasn’t played out that way.

Entering play Thursday, they ranked 16th in MLB in runs scored, 24th in average (.234), 22nd in slugging percentage (.382), 21st in homers (115) and 21st in OPS (.692).

Of course, there are a lot of factors that go into that.

Cody Bellinger was an MVP-caliber performer last season and hasn’t been at that level in 2024. Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner and Christopher Morel have all taken steps back offensively and the Cubs have received very little production from the catcher’s position. (Morel is now in Tampa Bay and the Cubs have replaced him in the lineup with Isaac Paredes as the everyday third baseman.)

One other big factor has been the simple lack of length to the lineup.

Last year, the Cubs lineup felt deep on a regular basis. Jeimer Candelario was one of the top bats available on the trade market and when the Cubs acquired him, he spent a good portion of his time in Chicago hitting 7th.

Candelario actually tied for the team lead with the most starts out of the 7-spot (30) with Morel, who hit the most homers on the team (26, tied with Bellinger).

In total, the Cubs’ 7-8-9 hitters put up a .245/.316/.408 slash line last season, good for a .724 OPS. They also hit 62 homers and drove in 235 runs.

So far this season (entering play Thursday), the lower third of the Cubs’ order has not come anywhere near that level of production.

In 2024, the 7-8-9 spots for the Cubs have combined to hit .222/.288/.339 (.627 OPS) and are on pace for just 33 homers and 186 RBI.

That’s a huge dip in production (nearly 100 OPS points, about half the homers) from one season to the next.

“One difference between this year and last year is our lineup has felt more shallow,” Jed Hoyer said last month. “We’ve had games where it felt like the bottom of the order wasn’t producing.

“And last year, one of the things I felt we were really good at and part of why we were 6th in baseball in run-scoring was that we were pretty deep 1-through-9. That hasn’t happened [this year] and the catching position has been part of that.”

In addition to Candelario and Morel seeing much of the time in the 7-spot last year, Yan Gomes was the team’s most frequent No. 8 hitter and Nick Madrigal batted 9th more than any other player.

Gomes had a strong offensive season last year (.723 OPS, 63 RBI) but struggled this season and was ultimately released in June.

This season, the players who have most often filled the 7-8-9 spots are Swanson, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Miguel Amaya.

All three have had their struggles this season but have been hitting better of late. And with it, the Cubs’ lineup suddenly has felt deeper again.

On Sunday night, Swanson singled and walked, Crow-Armstrong had a double and a single and Amaya homered, singled and scored a pair of runs. In Friday’s win, it was Christian Bethancourt in Amaya’s spot as catcher and he hit a 3-run shot while Crow-Armstrong added an RBI single to kick off the Cubs’ scoring that afternoon.

[WATCH: Highlights from the Cubs’ win over Cardinals Sunday night]

And in Thursday night’s walk-off win, it was Swanson who notched the game-tying hit out of the 7-spot and then Mike Tauchman (pinch-hitting for Crow-Armstrong) collected the game-winning knock.

“It’s just what makes that circle go,” Counsell said. “And I think when we get [production from the bottom of the lineup], it does feel like we have good offensive days. Because I think the other guys are doing something every day and we get some from the bottom of the lineup, that’s an extra run or extra two runs and that is the difference.”

A big part of the Cubs’ offensive issues earlier this summer was an inability to string together rallies. Which makes sense given that a third of the lineup has struggled all season long.

The Cubs hope adding Paredes into the lineup will help as more of a steady, consistent contributor than Morel. And they also hope the bottom of the lineup will continue to provide the production we’ve seen of late.

“Your lineup is a circle and you need production throughout it,” Counsell said. “There’s different ways to produce offense and we feel like with Isaac, we just got a very consistent, solid offensive presence that can hopefully make us more consistent scoring runs.”

As the Cubs play out the rest of this season, the lineup sits firmly under the microscope.