BOSTON – Just five days after getting hit in the face with a foul ball and suffering multiple facial fractures, Alex Bregman was back in action.
The third baseman served as the designated hitter in the first game of the team’s doubleheader Friday, and while he didn’t get on base – going 0-for-4 and striking out with two runners in scoring position – his presence meant plenty for the Cubs.
Not that his teammates needed a reminder of what kind of player Bregman is, but they got one anyway, witnessing firsthand what it took to come back from such a scary moment in a matter of days.
“Breggy, everybody knows the competitor he is and how much he puts into this game. But to see him tackle this adversity head on, his mentality never waivered,” starting pitcher Clay Holmes said. “He never showed any signs of being defeated. There was no question in his mind he was going to be back.”
Of course, there’s the baseball aspect of Bregman’s presence, too, and having the team’s second best hitter ready to go for the postseason – which begins Tuesday – is a huge deal for the Cubs as they look to make a run deep into October.
“I’m excited for the postseason. I’m looking forward to it,” Bregman said. “[Friday] was, ‘Let’s get some at-bats and get back to getting in the swing of things.’
“I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t thinking anything about my face and the only thing I was thinking about was how I normally think when I’m playing the game of baseball. And that was good. I didn’t think about it one time. All I was thinking about was what I normally go through in the batter’s box and in the dugout.
“The mechanics were terrible today. Hopefully, I’ll fix those and get back to crushing it.”
That’s the Cubs’ hope, too, and after watching this team the last four days, it could really use someone to start crushing it.
The Cubs – who woke up Friday as baseball’s highest scoring team and second in the sport in home runs – scored a total of nine runs and hit one homer in their last five games. That included two runs in each of their three contests against the Marlins earlier this week, three runs in Game 1 of Friday’s doubleheader and zero in Game 2. The only homer came off Seiya Suzuki’s bat in Thursday’s playoff-clinching victory.
Perhaps it’s not surprising they went 1-4.
Sure, the conditions helped. It was a cool, windy three days at Wrigley Field, and the storms coming to Boston meant more wind Friday at Fenway Park. At least two balls the Cubs hit would have been home runs in normal conditions, maybe a third, which obviously impacted the outcome.
“We hit three homers [in Game 1] that didn’t go out of the park. That’s offense,” manager Craig Counsell said. “We should have had six runs on the board. We had three. That’s how I saw it.”
But whether it’s stiff wind or stiff competition, the postseason will bring more challenges to the Cubs’ offense.
Bregman’s presence ought to help. But there will need to be contributions from all over the place to get the Cubs scoring runs in a way that will win playoff games.
“We haven’t swung it as well the last few days. But it takes one swing, honestly, for the whole lineup,” Bregman said. “This time of year, you’ve got to turn the page quickly. I know everyone wants to [say], ‘Oh, they haven’t hit for three days.’ But you’ve got to turn the page quickly and move onto the next pitch.
“There’s going to be games in the playoffs where we need to win games where we score three runs. And there’s going to be games where we can score a lot of runs and the offense will be rolling. We’ve got to figure out a way to do a little bit better than we’ve done the last few days.
“But it comes down to the next pitch, and that’s it. That’s the mentality in there.”