CHICAGO -- Over the past 10 days, the Giants have staged a couple of different interventions to try to halt their free fall.

Thairo Estrada stood at his locker and gave an inspiring pregame speech on Aug. 27, reaffirming his belief that the club was talented and capable enough to reach the playoffs.

After starting this week with back-to-back shutouts, manager Gabe Kapler met with veteran hitters Mike Yastrzemski and Wilmer Flores on Monday to try to get the club’s slumping lineup to be more aggressive at the plate.

So far, neither of those pleas has had the lasting impact the Giants hoped they would.

San Francisco again looked overmatched in an 8-2 loss to the Cubs on Wednesday afternoon at Wrigley Field, which sealed a three-game sweep. After dropping their season-high-matching sixth game in a row, the Giants have fallen back to .500 for the first time since June 10, continuing a perilous slide that is threatening to knock them out of the National League Wild Card race.

• Games remaining (22): vs. COL (3), vs. CLE (3), at COL (4), at AZ (2), at LAD (4), vs. SD (3), vs. LAD (3)
• Standings update: The Giants (70-70) slipped 2 1/2 games behind the Reds (73-68) for the third and final National League Wild Card spot, pending the outcome of Cincinnati’s game against Seattle on Wednesday night. They also trail the D-backs and Marlins in the race. San Francisco fell six games behind the Cubs (76-64) for the second NL Wild Card position. Chicago won the season series, 5-1, securing the head-to-head tiebreaker in the standings.

“We’ve just got to play better,” said left-hander Alex Wood, who was charged with the loss after giving up five runs over 2 1/3 innings in his first start since July 21. “At the end of the day, I feel like we’ve got a great group of guys in here. The mentality has stayed the same, for the most part, every day. Guys are showing up and working hard, trying to find the other side of this slump that we’ve been on. We haven’t clicked.

“It’s obviously a bad time. We’re not playing our best ball.”

The Giants couldn’t contain Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki, who went 8-for-13 with two home runs and nine RBIs over the pivotal three-game series. Suzuki opened the scoring with a bases-clearing double off Wood in the first inning, and the Cubs tacked on two more runs in the third on RBI hits from Cody Bellinger and Nick Madrigal.

San Francisco couldn’t climb out of the early hole, as the club was blanked through the first six innings by Chicago rookie Jordan Wicks. The Giants didn’t get on the board until Casey Schmitt delivered an RBI double in the seventh and scored on Joey Bart’s sacrifice fly to cut the deficit to 7-2.

The Giants are 9-21 (.300) since Aug. 5 -- the fourth-worst winning percentage in the Majors over that span -- and have been outscored by a 41-14 margin over their current six-game skid. They’re still searching for their first win in September, and they will now limp back home after going 1-6 on their road trip to San Diego and Chicago.

San Francisco’s offensive woes have been well-documented, but its pitching and defense also left much to be desired on Tuesday, when the club blew leads of 3-0 and 6-4 in one of its worst losses of the year. The loss of rookie catcher Patrick Bailey, who landed on the seven-day injured list with a concussion on Wednesday, only compounded matters, but the Giants are hoping Bart will be able to step in and help fill the void in the interim.

“It definitely looks rough, but I think it’ll turn a corner,” Schmitt said. “I think we’ll be just fine. I don’t think there’s any panic. I think we’re all going to stick together and just kind of go out and have a good week.”

If there’s any glimmer of hope for the Giants, it’s that their schedule is finally set to ease up after facing a gauntlet of tough opponents in recent weeks. They’ll host the Rockies and Guardians -- two sub-.500 teams -- on their upcoming six-game homestand at Oracle Park, and then head to Colorado for a four-game series at Coors Field, giving them an opportunity to get back on track and stay in contention down the stretch.

“This is where you keep fighting back,” Kapler said. “The season is 162 games for a reason. There are a lot of teams that have withstood this kind of punishment and continue to keep fighting. There’s a big reward if you’re able to keep getting up and going back after it the next day. That’s where we are. There’s a lot of time. We’re still within striking distance. This is a time where your toughness is tested, but you keep getting back up and going back for more.”