Major League Baseball is in the midst of a revolution.

The focus for hitters is on launch angle and exit velocity, sacrificing contact. The focus for pitchers is on strikeouts, sacrificing walks.

Which makes for a radically different game in terms of situational hitting from a decade or two ago. The two factions slam into each other when there's a runner on third base and less than two outs.

Hitters used to emphasize contact in those situations — shortening their swing, choking up on the bat, anything to get the run in with a productive ball in play.

Now we're seeing a whole lot of strikeouts in such instances.

"That's all I've been watching," Joe Maddon said before Tuesday's Cubs home opener. "I was sitting on the couch yesterday watching games and all I saw was teams cannot drive in a run from third base with less than two outs.

"It's not just something an individual team has to overcome."

Maddon attributes a lot of that to the increase in strikeout pitchers around the game, in large part thanks to a velocity spike.

Almost every relief pitcher can dial it up to the high-90s now and strikeouts are up at a record pace around the league — in any situation.

Pitchers are going for the strikeout more than ever. It's not about soft contact anymore (unless your name is Kyle Hendricks).

Maddon admitted he's specifically told Cubs relievers to go for the whiff several different times on the mound in the season's first 10 games.

"I give the ball to the guy and I'll say, 'Listen, you've got a base open. Go for the strikeout,'" Maddon said. "Meaning, even if he gets down like 2-0 [in the count], don't just throw a cookie in there. Go for the strikeout."

The issue of getting a runner home from third with less than two outs has been a huge Achilles' heel for the Cubs thus far in 2018, continuing a trend from last season.

Through the first nine games of the season, the Cubs had 25 plate appearances in which there was a runner on third base and less than two outs. They got the runner home in just 5 of those situations (20 percent success rate).

What's even more incredible is 3 of those 5 situations came in one inning — that wacky top of the ninth in Milwaukee Saturday evening when Ben Zobrist legged out an infield hit, Ian Happ lined a two-run single to left-center and Jon Lester laid down a perfect squeeze bunt.

So apart from that one inning, the Cubs are just 2-for-22 in succeeding on getting the runner home from third — a 9 percent success rate.

"We need to do it," Maddon said. "That's what we need to nail down. Most major-league managers are gonna say the same thing.

"Most of the time after a close loss, somebody's gonna talk about leaving runners on third. It's just an industry-wide issue. If we can nail that play down, we're gonna be really, really good."

This Cubs offense was supposed to be developing into the "elite" territory in baseball this season after scoring the second-most runs in the National League last season.

Yet they entered play Tuesday 25th in baseball in OPS (.568) and 27th in average (.176) with runners in scoring position.

They went 2-for-7 with runners in scoring position in Tuesday's 8-5 loss to the Pirates. Both hits were soft, bouncing ground balls in the perfect spot through the shift from Kyle Schwarber and Jason Heyward, leading to three runs.

It's not like Schwarber and Heyward crushed their hits, but Maddon and the Cubs coaching staff could point to any contact in such situations as a moment to learn from.

"That's what you're trying to do," Maddon said. "... It's not always gonna be perfect, but definitely our application is good. We're gonna get better at it."

Schwarber — who began the season 0-for-9 with 4 Ks with runners in scoring position — also saw his first-inning two-strike hit and Heyward's eighth-inning single as positive moments the Cubs could draw on down the line.

"Definitely a really good sign for us," Schwarber said. "Obviously it wasn't the outcome we wanted, but if we keep doing that as an offense, good things are gonna happen for us.

"You're not going up there trying to strike out. We're all up there always trying to put the ball in play. Sometimes that can work against you, if you try to put the ball in play too much and tell yourself you're not gonna strike out.

"You just gotta go with that and trust your plan and trust yourself and your abilities. I feel like we all did a pretty good job today with the offense."

The next five games will be a true test for the Cubs' situational offense with Anthony Rizzo — probably the team's best two-strike hitter — now on the disabled list.

In a game that swings heavily from one side to the other based on luck, sometimes good things can happen just by putting the ball in play, as Tuesday proved (even if it didn't lead to a Cubs victory).

"We just gotta learn to move the baseball," Maddon said. "For me, that's to concede. To make concessions. I'm talking about mental concessions. How you don't try to be as big, do so much.

"You're attempting to use the middle and opposite field. These are the kind of thoughts, to me, that get you away from that punch-out in that moment and that's what we're trying to nurture."