The ERAs are falling. Oneil Cruz is hitting home runs. Bryan Reynolds is back. And Ke’Bryan Hayes has reached base safely in 13 consecutive games

Why, then, have the Pirates (40-58) lost four of five games since the All-Star break and eight of their past 10, including a 4-2 defeat Tuesday to the Chicago Cubs (40-57) at Wrigley Field?

For starters, despite some encouraging signs, the Pirates are still last in the National League in runs scored (351, 3.6 per game) and batting average (.220). They have managed only 11 runs in the five games since the break while falling into fourth place in the National League Central.

While ERAs are improving — and Bryse Wilson’s is moving in the right direction after a nice effort Tuesday — there has not been enough bat support to win games.

Wilson gave up three runs in the first inning while having trouble pinpointing his slider. But he followed that up with five scoreless innings. In the first inning, seven batters collected four hits. In the next five, 18 batters had only two.

The only other Cubs run was Seiya Suzuki’s 436-foot home run in the eighth against reliever Wil Crowe.

“In the first inning, it looked like his command was a little scattered,” manager Derek Shelton said of Wilson, who has reached the sixth inning in three of his past four starts. “He ended up missing in the middle of the plate and got hit.”

After that, the Cubs largely managed only weak contact while Wilson was able to execute all of his pitches.

“I was able to get the slider down,” Wilson said.

Said Shelton of his starters’ recent success: “We’ve attacked the zone. We’ve been able to use our off-speed stuff in the zone.”

But when pitchers give up four runs, and the offense averages fewer than four per game, the math doesn’t work. It’s even worse when the pitching disappears, which it has done in three losses by double-digit margins this month.

The Pirates have lost 13 games in July, and the margin of defeat in eight of them has been one or two runs, thanks in large part to the starters’ recent improvement. It was close again Tuesday, based on pitching and Oneil Cruz’s dynamic bat.

In the seventh inning, Cruz sent a four-seam fastball from Keegan Thompson through the Wrigley wind and over the center-field ivy for a two-run homer, his second in three games. Both runs were unearned because Cal Mitchell was on base because of Cubs shortstop Nico Hoerner’s error.

Cruz’s shot was clocked at 111.3 mph and landed 416 feet from home plate. If there had been no wind, the ball would have traveled 435 feet, according to Statcast computations.

It was Cruz’s sixth home run of the season, and the two RBIs gave him 21 in only 113 at-bats. His 24 career RBIs — he had three in 2021 — are tied for fourth most by a Pirates rookie in his first 32 games since 1920. He also has at least one RBI (a total of 10) in each of his first six games against the Cubs.

Other than Cruz’s one big swing, Thompson and relievers Rowan Wick and Mychal Givens were dominant, giving up only four hits and no walks. The Pirates struck out seven times, giving them 911 in 98 games (9.3 per game and next-to-worst in the National League).

The hope is that Hayes’ three-for-eight effort at the plate the past two games will signal upcoming improvement of his .251 batting average.

“Mechanically, he’s been in the best spot he’s been in in a while,” Shelton said. “It looks like he’s really under his legs and driving the ball into right-center.”

Reynolds’ return from an oblique injury eventually could help, but he’s 0 for 8 with three strikeouts in his first two games back in the lineup.

“We gave away too many outs early in counts by getting out of our approach,” Shelton said. “The group or team approach has to be consistent, and it’s something we are struggling with a little bit right now.”

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