The Chicago Cubs have possessed one of the best offenses in Major League Baseball throughout the entire season.

Even more so recently, as Chicago has scored 51 runs over its previous five games. The only problem, though, is that the Cubs are 2-3 in that five-game stretch where they're averaging over 10 runs per game. 

You may wonder how that could be possible. It's due to the one glaring fault holding the team back.

The Cubs bullpen is atrocious

Entering Tuesday, the Chicago bullpen ranks 12th in baseball with a 4.01 ERA and sixth in the National League. While that doesn't seem so bad, recent failures have cost Chicago valuable games.

Two series ago in Arizona, the Cubs starting pitchers combined to pitch 20 innings of one-run baseball. The series result? The Cubs lost two out of three. The same thing happened in Seattle just before that, with the Chicago bullpen blowing saves in back-to-back games.

Chicago needs more from its expected high leverage relievers

In a perfect world in a postseason game, Cubs manager Craig Counsell would like to hand the ball to Ryan Zeferjahn in the seventh, Jacob Webb in the eighth and Daniel Palencia in the ninth.

The current problem with that is those three have combined for just three scoreless outings across their last 10 appearances. That is nowhere close to cutting it for a reliever trio that is supposed to the backbone of the bullpen.

A bad bullpen may cost Chicago a chance at the World Series

All the offensive firepower is present for Chicago. Pete Crow-Armstrong, the front-runner for NL MVP, along with Alex Bregman and others, have produced the best offense in baseball all season.

It may be the late inning guys that eventually cost the team a chance at making a run to the World Series for the first time since 2016.