Can the Chicago Cubs become more of a small ball team? Manager David Ross thinks so — but there are lineup challenges.

In a routine play Saturday against the Miami Marlins, second baseman Eric Sogard illustrated why the Chicago Cubs are the league average in run-scoring percentage (31%).

With the team down 4-0 in the second inning, Sogard followed up Javier Báez’s fly out with a single. The Cubs had gone 1-2-3 in the first inning, so Sogard’s base hit gave them their first sign of life — but Ian Happ grounded into a double play.

Inning over. Momentum over.

The Cubs lost 11-1 with just three hits on the day, with Jason Heyward preventing a shutout with a solo home run in the eighth inning. The day before, the Cubs generated four hits in a 10-2 loss to the Marlins, with both runs coming from Joc Pederson solo homers.

Over the previous six games, the Cubs have had 24 hits and generated 12 runs, but all of those scores came off nine home runs.

“We certainly believe we’ll bounce out of it, but it’s a time where we need to do those smaller things, work at bats, work walks, get guys over,” Sogard said after Saturday’s game. “Do a little small ball compared to relying on the home run all the time. We’ve got to find other ways to win than just by the long ball.”

Manager David Ross embraced the Cubs reestablishing a small ball game.

“I think that at heart I’m probably more of the get guys over, get them in, small ball” type of manager, Ross said.

“One, you got to get baserunners on (base) to do that — we’ve got to have some guys on, and not two outs — to bunt guys over.”

At first glance, it doesn’t look like the Cubs are terrible on the base paths.

Both their sacrifice bunts and flies are above league average, and they were ninth in stolen bases (36) heading into Sunday’s game. But they’ve had just 908 stolen base opportunities, which ranks 21st in MLB, and their 69% stolen base percentage is fourth-worst.

Before Sunday, the Cubs had gone 13 games since swiping a bag (June 5 at San Francisco) and had been caught stealing three times.

Anthony Rizzo made it four times in the last 14 games Sunday when he was caught in a rundown in the second inning. He also got picked off second base in the fourth.

Also consider: The Cubs’ .304 on-base percentage ranks 21st heading into Sunday.

“We haven’t had a whole lot of traffic on the bases,” Ross said.

Ross said he hopes to tweak the lineup to fill the bases with more natural runners, but injuries and the roster’s home run-slanted makeup have made it a challenge.

“I think that’s all about how your lineup’s constructed, your roster’s constructed,” he said. “It’s where you’re at in the lineup, how many outs there are, who gets on in front of who.

“(If) Joc Pederson gets on in front of Kris Bryant, I’m not going to bunt Kris Bryant to get Joc to second,” he said. “We’ve had hit some home runs but they’ve been a lot of solo shots or two-run homers.

“I would definitely agree that that’s a part of the game that we haven’t been great at lately, but I don’t think it’s for lack of trying.”

Ross has a couple of reinforcements in mind, but they could be weeks away.

“We’d probably have to get Nico Hoerner in the lineup, probably a Matt Duffy might make a lot of sense,” Ross said. “I don’t think we’re going to ask Patrick Wisdom to bunt guys over. All that stuff is a product of in-game stuff that is happening, who’s in the lineup and your options on the bench.”

If you excuse the small sample size of 21 games, Hoerner leads the Cubs in on-base percentage with .405.

Duffy has the second-best quality of contact (next to Wisdom) with a .363 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA), according Baseball Savant’s Statcast data.

The question is when they’ll be available.

Hoerner has been out since May 26 with a left hamstring strain and Duffy has been out since May 23 with a lower back strain.

Hoerner is closer than Duffy to making his return; the Cubs hope that he can start a rehab assignment within a week to 10 days.

“Nico had a really nice day yesterday, back out here today,” Ross said. “No soreness.”

Duffy, however, “pushed it really hard” on a day of baseball activity, Ross said, “and the next day there was some real soreness.”

Just before the New York Mets series, “(we) thought things were trending in the right direction,” Ross aid. “It’s really been something that’s been not progressing since then.

“We’re still just optimistic as we could be. It’s something he’s dealt with a long time. It’s something that’s more a chronic injury that we want to make sure that we take care of it before we get him back.”

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