On Friday afternoon, the videoboard in the Cubs’ clubhouse displayed a wild rethinking of their lineup. Cody Bellinger and Jeimer Candelario were listed as playing first base.
This was revealed to be a mistake.
Before their 5-2 victory Sunday against the Diamondbacks to avoid a four-game sweep, the Cubs made a slightly more substantive change to warm up an ice-cold offense. A slumping Christopher Morel hit leadoff for his first start in three days, a red-hot Seiya Suzuki batted third and Ian Happ slid down to sixth.
Manager David Ross professed his preference for lineup consistency before the game, but he hardly needed to. Happ hadn’t batted anywhere other than third in more than a month and hadn’t batted lower than fifth since mid-June.
‘‘Most of the lineups revolve around the starting pitcher that day,’’ Ross said. ‘‘They’re starting an opener. Just making sure they face our three best to start.’’
In a switch away from their initially listed probable starter, the Diamondbacks deployed left-hander Joe Mantiply as an opener to shield scuffling rookie Brandon Pfaadt from a string of left-handed hitters in his eventual first inning of work.
‘‘You just have the same at-bat,’’ Happ said. ‘‘With the lefty opening it up, you get Morel a chance to swing it early, and Seiya has crushed lefties all year. So it made a ton of sense.’’
Morel quickly deflected any skepticism that he still is one of the Cubs’ best options by slicing a triple off Mantiply in the first — though he was tagged out in a rundown a batter later — and launching the first of three solo home runs that greeted Pfaadt in the third. Suzuki’s RBI double against Mantiply in the first redeemed Morel’s blunder. And with Bellinger and Dansby Swanson going back-to-back behind Morel, the Cubs’ third inning exceeded their scoring output of the previous two games in around 10 minutes’ time.
The order change might be a one-off. Ideally for the Cubs, however, the breakout will be more long-lasting.
‘‘We’ve been honestly grinding away at it the last couple of days and nothing really to show for it,’’ Swanson said. ‘‘So many times you can overthink it and get robotic, so I just trust the ability God gave me and just go play.’’
Pfaadt is now up to 20 homers allowed in 80‰ career innings, so whether the Cubs’ offense is recharged or they ran into a homer-prone rookie is a ‘‘chicken or egg’’ debate irrelevant to a team scratching for its playoff lives.
Or, in this case, it’s an offense that thought its team approach was fine, even as it was being shut down by Diamondbacks pitching the last few days with the wind blowing in.
‘‘I saw [Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin] Carroll and thought, ‘Maybe not today,’ ’’ Bellinger said of watching what seemed to be a no-doubter off his bat barely clip the right-field seats after fighting the wind. ‘‘Our pitching staff did an unbelievable job this whole series keeping us in games. We tried to pick it up a little bit and do our part.’’
Whether it was a blip or a return to the top-three offense the Cubs have been since the All-Star break, it only took a little to shift things toward the type of game they are built to win because their defense is too sharp for 4-0 deficits to be scratched away easily.
Mike Tauchman’s running catch on a liner to the gap in left-center eased the burden on Julian Merryweather, who spelled Adbert Alzolay for the save while working for a third consecutive day himself. Nick Madrigal had a banner day at third base, and Happ’s sliding catch in left before popping up to double off Emmanuel Rivera in the fifth deflated the Diamondbacks’ best rally against starter Kyle Hendricks.
‘‘I’ve gotta remind some of these guys that haven’t seen me play infield,’’ Happ said with a wry grin. ‘‘You don’t lose that.’’
