The series this weekend against the Braves has been on Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson’s mind the last few days. It will be his first time facing the organization he spent seven years with as the hometown kid.
“It’s a really good opportunity for us,” Swanson said in a conversation with the Sun-Times before the Cubs’ 5-3 win Thursday against the Reds. “Because, obviously, they’ve got a good team, and we’ve been playing well. And that’s the point that we’re wanting to get to this season. And to be able to have that challenge in front of us is something really good for us right now.”
It’s bound to be a meaningful reunion. But for Swanson, who signed a seven-year, $177 million contract with the Cubs this offseason, “us” came to mean the Cubs months ago.
He has been a leader on the team all year. And his return from the injured list almost two weeks ago helped spark the hot stretch the Cubs have carried through the trade deadline. His heel injury sidelined him for 12 games and 16 days, with the All-Star break in the middle. But Swanson entered Thursday with a 1.164 OPS in 11 games since returning.
Asked last week if he was surprised by his ability to jump back into action already in rhythm, Swanson said: “I mean, hitting is the hardest thing to do in sports.”
He knew that going into his IL stint. So he had a conversation with the hitting coaches early, asking them to challenge him and get him out of his comfort zone. They came back to him with a plan that included hitting a lot of composite baseballs at high velocity.
“Sometimes the real baseball in that kind of a setting, if you’d hit one off the end or something, your day’s done,” Swanson said with a chuckle. “With those, that allows for you to hit more, and you feel more comfortable with ramping the speed up because they move faster, and you’re not going to have to worry about your hands getting crushed.”
Swanson was anxious to get back on the field. He’d play all 162 regular-season games if he had his way — and he has before. But when the coaching staff nominated him as an honorary hitting coach, he embraced it. He watched video with teammates, suggested drills and offered insight in hitters meetings, hitting coach Dustin Kelly said.
“I joked with them that he was the highest-paid hitting coach in the history of baseball in those 10 days,” Kelly said.
Swanson returned from the IL in time for the last two games of a four-game series against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. He had seven hits in his first three games back. But it wasn’t just his pure production.
Swanson was getting timely hits and flashing his power. He went 3-for-3 in his first Crosstown Showdown game with two home runs, the first multihomer game of his Cubs tenure, and drove in four of the Cubs’ seven runs. The first homer put the Cubs on the board. The second accounted for the would-be winning run. And his seventh-inning RBI single tacked on insurance.
Then against the Reds this week, Swanson hit four homers in the first three games of the four-game series.
The homer streak ended Thursday, but he still bounced a ball over the fence. With the Cubs clinging to a one-run lead in the eighth, Swanson lined a splitter into the left-center gap for an automatic double to lead off the inning. He scored on Yan Gomes’ sacrifice fly to make the Cubs’ lead a bit more comfortable.
The Cubs took three of four from the Reds. Next up, the MLB-leading Braves.
