Is the monkey off Dansby Swanson’s back?
After the slumping shortstop homered as part of the Cubs’ seven-run second inning in Wednesday’s 8-6 win over the Rockies, a monkey just wasn’t a big enough animal to describe the relief he was feeling.
“What’s the biggest mammal in the world? I think it’s a blue whale, actually,” Swanson said after the game. “There you go. Maybe that.”
It’s been an obviously rough go for Swanson this season, making him a prime target for frustrated fans. He came into Wednesday’s game with a .175 batting average that ranked as the worst in the sport among qualified hitters.
But Cubs brass, asked this week if it’s time to make a change at shortstop, did not indicate there’s a plot to move Swanson – the second highest paid player on the roster, with a $28 million salary – from his everyday role.
“I think we should be continuing to invest in Dansby getting back to the offensive player that we know he is,” manager Craig Counsell said Wednesday. “That’s what needs to happen for this team. That’s important to keep trying to do, and the best way to do that is to have him out on the field.”
One homer won’t boost Swanson’s numbers back to where he wants them to be, but in what’s been a challenging few months for the Gold Glover and two-time All Star, it seemed to provide a catharsis of sorts.
“Believing in myself has gotten me to this point, and I’m very thankful for it,” he said. “Obviously, it’s been really hard, in a way, this year. But the light can’t get dimmed. It’s easy to lead when you’re swinging the bat good. It’s a lot harder when you’re not. But we’re not called to just do things when we’re feeling good.
“The work has been really, really good over the last few days. I really feel confident in the direction I’m going. It’s a matter of compiling those days. It’s showing up in an at-bat here and there, but at some point it will be consistently [there for] however many at-bats I’m fortunate enough to get in a game.”
How many at-bats Swanson should be getting has been a popular discussion topic, with some seeing better alternatives elsewhere on the roster with the shortstop’s slump as deep as it’s gotten this season.
But asked whether the Cubs would consider a change, club brass didn’t seem likely to send Swanson to the bench.
“Obviously, Dansby has struggled,” team president Jed Hoyer said Tuesday. “He’s gotten some days off. He’s working hard to improve. The offense has been a challenge, overall. It shouldn’t be, in general. We should score plenty of runs, but that hasn’t been the case.
“Our run prevention is probably the backbone of this team. … We prevent runs really well. We won a game in San Francisco the other day because we played great defense, honestly. So you can’t just forget about that when we start to struggle a bit offensively.
“We can’t just run away from our run prevention at times when we struggle offensively.”
Swanson’s defense, to go along with a career-high walk rate, has continued to make him a valuable part of the Cubs’ everyday lineup, even while some of the other offensive numbers have been eye-poppingly poor. He’s taken pride in that, and it’s helped him navigate through a challenging campaign.
“At some point, the offensive stuff comes around,” he said. “This is a really hard game, and it’s probably harder than it’s been in a long time. And so whatever I can do to help us win games is what I’m going to do.”
We’ll see if a big night for the Cubs’ bats ends up serving as a turning point for a team that despite back-to-back series wins is just 12-24 since May 9.
“I’m not going to buy into that yet,” center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong said. “I want to keep stacking [wins].”
But for Swanson, maybe no matter what comes next, it was an important moment.
A whale of a moment, to be precise.