CHICAGO — Amid a collective slump that has amplified the boos at Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell plans to temporarily bench Dansby Swanson, hoping “a couple days away from the game” will help the All-Star shortstop regroup.
Swanson is a healthy player, Counsell said, and the manager wound up subbing him in as the automatic runner at second base for Saturday’s 10th inning against the San Francisco Giants. Swanson scored the winning run when Michael Busch singled past diving second baseman Luis Arraez and right fielder Victor Bericoto misplayed the ball for an error, giving the Cubs a 3-2 walk-off victory.
The crowd of 39,248 erupted, and the players celebrated on the field, but the Cubs have already seen so many highs and lows this season that they aren’t viewing this as a turning point.
Though still delivering his usual Gold Glove-caliber defense, Swanson has a .180 batting average and an OPS+ that makes him roughly 24 points worse than a league-average hitter. He’s nearing the halfway point in the fourth season of a seven-year, $177 million contract.
“We’re just trying to get him a different look and a little break mentally,” Counsell said. “The things that he’s working on doing, we think, are good things and the right things. We haven’t seen many signs of positive results from it. But let’s try to commit to a couple more days of good work and maybe cement some of those thoughts and habits. And then take it into a game.”
After being featured in “Sunday Night Baseball,” the Cubs are off Monday before a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies starting Tuesday night at Coors Field, a hitter’s paradise.
Meanwhile, Nico Hoerner was the starting shortstop in Saturday’s lineup, with rookie infielder Pedro Ramírez covering second base, underlining the potential options for a club with several versatile defenders.
Does Swanson understand the reasoning behind this decision?
“Yes and no,” Counsell said. “That’s how you usually expect it to be. He wants to keep going out there and figuring it out. But he understands why we’re doing this. These guys want to play. They believe. That’s how it should be. So, you expect some of that.”
Swanson, now 32, developed an ironman reputation with the Atlanta Braves, playing in 160 games and three playoff rounds during their 2021 World Series-winning campaign.
During his contract year with the Braves in 2022, Swanson appeared in all 162 games and made 161 starts at shortstop, logging 1,433 innings at a premium defensive position while also producing 25 home runs and 96 RBIs.
As advertised, Swanson remains a peak defender, and his offensive production can be particularly streaky.
After an encouraging start that saw Swanson launch six home runs in April, he has produced only one since the beginning of May, a 31-game sample that generated a .437 OPS at a time when nearly all of Chicago’s established hitters fell into a funk.
Cubs outfielder Ian Happ seemed to benefit from a similar break recently, and Counsell gave All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker a “reset” last summer, so this move is not unprecedented. For the moment, the Cubs want Swanson to focus on his work in the batting cage.
“They’re just mechanical things and thoughts around the direction you’re trying to create,” Counsell said. “You’re trying to create good swings. You’re trying to create consistent swing decisions. That’s what produces results.”
Counsell had also recently talked about how Swanson needed good feedback in a game. The pent-up emotions poured out of Swanson after he delivered a clutch RBI single in the ninth inning of Thursday’s 7-6 comeback win over the Athletics, which suggested that maybe the Cubs would create a new sense of momentum.
“This is who we are,” Swanson said in the Wrigley Field clubhouse after that walk-off victory.
The next day, the Giants beat the Cubs 18-3.
Saturday afternoon, the Cubs almost wasted Ben Brown’s 5 1/3 scoreless innings and Pete Crow-Armstrong’s two home runs, including another dramatic one with two outs in the ninth inning.
Though Swanson became Saturday’s headliner for being on the sideline, the story of this downswing has been several high-paid hitters underachieving in the batter’s box. For this offense to function at a high level, Alex Bregman can’t be a singles hitter and Seiya Suzuki can’t go nearly a month between home runs. Hoerner, too, can be more of a catalyst.
Neither Hoerner (flyout) nor Bregman (strikeout) could get the big two-out hit Saturday when the Cubs loaded the bases in the sixth and seventh innings against San Francisco’s bullpen.
The Cubs rank near the bottom of the majors with a .228 batting average with runners in scoring position. Since getting to 15 games above .500 in May with their second 10-game winning streak, the Cubs have endured a 7-19 stretch.
Swanson’s steady presence was essential to the Cubs’ winning 92 games and a playoff round last year. Across the past four seasons, this is how Baseball Reference has rated his overall contributions in terms of WAR: 5.5, 5.2, 4.0 and 4.5.
With a 34-31 record and a plus-4 run differential, the Cubs have drifted into mediocrity, which in June still makes them a viable contender for an expanded playoff field. On Friday morning, Counsell said he believes the best possible version of this team features Swanson as the everyday shortstop.
“There’s always lessons in the bad,” Swanson said, “especially when you’re grinding through things. For me, it’s just been all about, ‘If you show up and be yourself, whether you go 0-for-4 or 4-for-4, you can still impact winning in so many other ways.’ It’s embracing more of that and kind of taking the pressure off of just the offense.”
