CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs entered Friday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates with a four-game skid while losing their once-solid grip on a National League wild-card spot.

The natives were getting restless and angst-ridden, watching a struggling Cubs team that a few weeks ago seemed like a lock for the No. 4 seed in the NL and home-field advantage in the wild-card round.

But manager Craig Counsell was unusually chipper Friday morning, as opposed to his postgame demeanor a few days ago in Milwaukee, where he sounded like he wanted to throw someone in a wood chipper.

“This is the good time of the year,” Counsell told reporters Friday. “Now, what’s good about it?”

I honestly wasn’t ready for a pop quiz on a Friday morning.

Counsell didn’t give us time to answer, which was just as well since my guess was “the Bears are starting up again.”

“It’s that it’s just a little more emotional,” he continued, answering his own question. “During those games in May and June, there are some emotional games, but there is a cruise-control aspect that has to be in a major league season, right? Because it’s so many games. I don’t want that phrase to be misinterpreted, but you understand.”

Cruise control? Deleted. Please continue.

“Now we’re at the time of the year where the games matter more, so it’s more emotional,” Counsell said. “And that’s the good part about it. So we feel a little better when we win and we get hurt a little more when we lose. That’s the best part. That’s why this job is great.”

The Cubs went on to trounce the Pirates, 12-2, to end their losing streak and start their six-game homestand on an up note.

Managing the Cubs is indeed a great job when you’re winning, especially if you’re being paid $8 million a year. When you’re losing … not so much.

This year has seen the Cubs do both, often in long stretches of either winning a lot or losing a lot. Cubs fans have alternated between being ecstatic and miserable, sometimes in the same inning.

It’s nothing new. I’ve covered many crazy Cubs seasons since 1987, and legendary managers from Don Zimmer to Dusty Baker to Lou Piniella to Joe Maddon to Counsell.

But the extremes in fan reactions seem more pronounced in 2026 than any other year I can remember, including the early 2000s.

“Let’s not gloom-and-doom this thing,” Piniella once pleaded with the media after a Game 1 playoff loss against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2007 NL Division Series.

The Cubs were promptly swept, so doom won out. Ditto in ’08, when they won 97 games and were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS. Piniella lasted 3 1/2 years here and said managing in Chicago was different than anywhere else on the planet.

“One thing I’ve learned about Chicago is that you’re really up or you’re really down,” he said.

Guilty as charged. A couple of weeks ago many Cubs fans wanted Shota Imanaga out of the rotation. Since then he has gotten a haircut and won his last two starts, allowing three runs over 12 innings. Now he could be a playoff starter again.

The Cubs have 14 games left to calm everyone’s fears and get into the postseason, at which point the anxiety attacks will begin anew. They’ll need more consistency out of the bullpen, which has been a recurring nightmare in the last few weeks after stabilizing over the summer.

The good news is Counsell said Friday that they’ll have a discussion on promoting rehabbing Edward Cabrera, which could mean the power pitcher joins the team to help stabilize the pen.

Or was that the bad news? Cabrera has a 9.82 ERA in four relief appearances at Triple-A Iowa. But wait, he also has 14 strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings, which is exactly what the bullpen needs.

Anyway, someone will have to go to Iowa if Cabrera comes up, and if that someone is Javier Assad, Cubs fans will be up in arms again.

Shortstop Dansby Swanson also will be going to Iowa for his rehab early next week and should be back in Cincinnati for the final nine games. Swanson’s absence from an oblique injury weakened the middle-infield defense, though Nico Hoerner has performed well at short.

Swanson said Friday that he feels great after rehabbing from his first soft-tissue injury since he was 15, and he has tried to be a pseudo-coach on the bench, offering suggestions to teammates.

Maybe he’ll manage one day?

“No,” he said without hesitation. “Maybe a 14-and-under baseball team. Or, let’s be real, probably if Josie starts playing soccer or something.”

Josie is the 10-month-old daughter of Dansby and wife Mallory, so that’ll probably be a while.

Whether Counsell has had enough of managing in Chicago by then remains to be seen. He’s in the third year of his five-year deal, but that’s a decade in Cubs years.

After Friday’s game, the gloom-and-doom on the North Side had disappeared, at least for the time being. They sang the song they sing, waved the flags they wave and packed the Wrigleyville bars to quaff the drinks they drink.

Counsell must know by now that managing the Cubs in September is not a recipe for happiness. Only one manager has even gotten them into a World Series over the last 80 years, and Maddon was let go three years after the 2016 championship in the conscious uncoupling with Theo Epstein.

Team President Jed Hoyer, who welcomed back many members of the 2016 front office Friday, confirmed in ’15 that the Cubs managing job “has proven to be the most difficult” in baseball.

“You’re in a major market, you’ve got a rabid fan base,” Hoyer said. “But I certainly think it’s a doable job. It’s a job that’s attainable. You have to have the best team and you have to get hot in October. I don’t think there are inherent obstacles. Maybe there have been in the past.”

The hardest part about it might be dealing with panicky Cubs fans in a pennant race.

Sure, it’s an occupational hazard.

But maybe that’s what makes it so great.

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