PITTSBURGH -- At about the time the Milwaukee Brewers were popping champagne Wednesday night for another postseason appearance, Chicago Cubs reliever David Phelps was throwing his second consecutive wild pitch, allowing the lead run to score in a 4-2 Cubs defeat to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates.

It would be the team's eighth straight loss, as that duo of wild pitches was emblematic of a sloppy season of baseball for the 2016 World Series champions. In getting eliminated from postseason contention on Wednesday, they have officially bottomed out.

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"The degree to which we've stumbled here down the stretch is definitely surprising," team president Theo Epstein said before the latest loss. "When you have the best possible outcome, and overcome a lot of things and do some transcendent things, you grow from that because you've done something you haven't done before.

"When you have the middle-of-the-road outcome, you can always tell yourself whatever story you want to hear. It's a gray area.

"When you have the worst possible outcome, like we've had, it reveals everything. As painful as it can be, it creates a real opportunity to learn from it and grow."

The Cubs will have plenty of time to learn from their mistakes -- and there were many of them -- as being home for October isn't sitting well with this group of players. It has been their norm to grind toward the playoffs, but the final days of this season are being spent in a daze -- players don't know what to do with themselves. There's simply nothing left to play for.

"As a group, we flat out didn't get it done this last month," starter Jon Lester said. "Other teams did. Other teams played way better than us. It sucks."

First baseman Anthony Rizzo added: "You set out goals in the spring you want to accomplish as an organization, we didn't. We held ourselves to a high standard and it's up to everyone to figure out why. Why didn't we come together and win?"

Rizzo's question lingered for a few moments, as he stood near his locker after Wednesday's loss, with teammate Jason Heyward looking on nearby. The answer can be found in the numbers, of course. Baseball always has numbers.

The Cubs were bad on the road this season, blowing leads at an alarming rate. And they made more errors than just about anyone in the National League, while taking the top spot in baserunning blunders. And those are just the little things.

The one big component that might have set the Cubs back more than anything was a high-priced starting rotation that never got into gear. Lester prides himself in pitching 200 innings every season, but the only 200 on his stat sheet this year is under the "hits allowed" column. Kyle Hendricks and Jose Quintana were the definition of inconsistent, and Yu Darvish actually was very good -- but only for the second half of the season. Cole Hamels was good, then hurt, then bad. Lester called his season "not great." The same goes for his team.

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"You play seven months to come down to this last week," he said. "There are teams like us, tucking our tails between our legs and going home. And there are teams like the Brewers and Cardinals who are moving on."

The optics of Milwaukee and St. Louis making it to October, with arguably less talent and definitely less payroll, doesn't sit well with anyone associated with the Cubs. Lester shook his head at the thought of those teams having more talent. He wouldn't concede that fact.

"The game of baseball is fickle," Lester said. "Sometimes you don't have answers for why things happen, whether that be on the positive side or the negative side."

Perhaps no player has been more confused by what he has seen than newcomer Nicholas Castellanos. Excited to be released from the purgatory known as the rebuilding Detroit Tigers, Castellanos thought his playoff career was going to get a jump-start next month. Instead, the Cubs looked more like his old team than one worthy of the postseason.

"There's no way around it," Castellanos said. "It sucks. I wish I could have done more."

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Castellanos did plenty, as he's flirting with a 60-double season. It's some of the only drama left in the final few games; a few personal goals to be achieved. This wasn't supposed to happen to the Chicago Cubs. A franchise once a laughingstock, then a champion, has returned to being laughed at yet again.

"We have the best organization in the league," Rizzo said proudly. "We have an owner who cares, a front office who cares, players who care, a coaching staff who cares, so I don't believe we're just going to go away and not do well again."

If that's a promise for next season by Rizzo, Cubs fans will hold him to it. Between now and then, the team has to figure out what exactly went wrong. Last year, it was the offense. This year, it seemed much bigger.

"The thing that gets you excited, even in the face of this adversity, is waking up and trying to build the next Cubs championship team," Epstein said.

The work can start now, considering elimination day has arrived. Epstein must first decide the fate of manager Joe Maddon, then begin to reshape a flawed roster. After winning 95 games last season, he found some gray area in the team's early postseason dismissal. Not this time. It's all black and white.

"The extreme nature of what's happened can make things clear or make things unavoidable," Epstein said. "You can't spin a narrative for yourself."