CHICAGO — Kyle Tucker was back in the Chicago Cubs lineup Thursday after a three-game respite from manager Craig Counsell to get his head together and his swing back.

Did anything positive come out of the time off?

“We won a few games,” Tucker said. “So that’s positive.”

Tucker’s return coincided with a 4-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in the finale of the five-game series at Wrigley Field, as the Cubs fell seven games back in the National League Central race that isn’t really much of a race.

Tucker went 0 for 4 with a walk, and the Cubs wasted another fine outing from Shota Imanaga (8-6), who made only one mistake in seven innings — a two-run home run to Brice Turang in the second.

It only seemed as if the Brewers were in town longer than a Wendella boat ride, with five games and one rainout since Monday afternoon. The Cubs won the series, but it felt like another missed opportunity.

“Look, I describe this series as we kind of held serve,” Counsell said. “We probably needed it a little bit more. We win three out of five. That adds up to three wins. Today stings a little bit. Getting today’s game obviously would’ve been a big one. They played a better game than us.”

The Cubs finished with five hits and went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position, finishing the five-game series with a .187 average off Brewers pitching. Counsell rested his hottest hitter, Matt Shaw, using him as a defensive sub in the ninth.

Despite the wind blowing in again, it was still Tucker’s chance to show the time off was put to good use. But he grounded out twice, hit a soft liner to second and flied out to center. It was an eventful week for the Cubs slugger, who was booed, benched and baffled by being in the eye of a media hurricane in Chicago, after years or being a solid but unassuming member of the Houston Astros’ menagerie.

Tucker’s summer slump apparently was the result of a small fracture in his right hand near his ring and pinkie fingers from a June 1 slide. Or maybe not?

No one is quite sure because Tucker hit well for a stretch after the injury, which was not fully disclosed at the time, and then stopped slugging completely, with no home runs since July 17. The Cubs kept the results of an imaging test quiet while Counsell and President Jed Hoyer repeatedly insisted Tucker was fine the last two months, before Counsell finally confirmed an ESPN report on the small fracture after Wednesday night’s game.

Tucker said he was OK playing through some pain, though that decision looked bad when his slump, combined with the poor stretches of several teammates, contributed to the Cubs’ free fall from first place to wild-card contenders.

“I was just like, ‘I’m going to keep playing,' ” he said before the game. “There wasn’t really a need to go on an IL, because I could still do everything. It was more like a pain tolerance at that point rather than like I physically couldn’t do anything.”

Tucker is headed toward free agency and projected as the top available hitter. Missing time could’ve cost him on the market, where he stands to make $400 million or more. But he kept playing until Counsell finally benched him after Monday’s game for a mental reset.

Why the deception?

Counsell said many player injuries are not disclosed when that player is still good enough to play. He didn’t feel the Cubs misled the media “because (Tucker) was playing” and hitting well for a while.

“So, again, we still don’t know the answers completely,” Counsell said of Tucker’s struggles. “We made a decision together to keep playing him. He was playing well and able to manage it, tolerate it, which is something players choose to do to maybe get through things. So …”

And so it goes.

Turang’s two-run home run off Imanaga gave the Brewers a quick lead in the second inning, and the Cubs were held to one run off Quinn Priester and five Brewers relievers.

The Cubs put the tying run on with no outs in the bottom of the seventh, but Tucker’s soft liner to second turned into a double play when Michael Busch misread it and couldn’t get back, and Seiya Suzuki fanned.

The Brewers added on in the eighth on Isaac Collins’ two-run single off Ryan Brasier, whose ERA zoomed to 14.86 (11 earned runs in 6 2/3 innings) over his last eight appearances. The Cubs led off the eighth with back-to-back walks but failed to score again.

The Cubs left for the West Coast after the game to open a three-game series Friday in Anaheim, Calif., against the Los Angeles Angels, followed by trips to San Francisco and Denver. They still control their fate in the NL wild-card race, and a 5-3 homestand was at least a sign they might be emerging from their post-All-Star Game doldrums.

Brewers fans made themselves at home this week at Wrigley, which remained packed despite three weekday days games due to a rainout and most kids being back in school. On Thursday the Cubs replayed a video of late Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker performing the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley, a moment that united fans from both cities.

A memorial for Uecker, who died Jan. 16 at age 90, will be held Sunday at the Brewers-Giants game in Milwaukee.

But that’s it for the season series, which the Cubs won 7-6, for whatever that’s worth.

It was a lot of fun, with plenty of fan taunting, some great endings and manager Pat Murphy’s crazy assertions the Brewers were still “underdogs” to the Cubs despite their huge division lead.

We can only hope the Cubs and Brewers meet again in the postseason with a chance to end each other’s season.

That would be a fitting conclusion to a rivalry that gets better and better every year.

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