The Chicago Cubs are sitting in a wild card spot and staring at a division deficit. They just called up a top prospect. And Dansby Swanson, who won a ring with the 2021 Braves, is starting to notice some familiar patterns.
Swanson told Patrick Mooney of The Athletic that this Cubs team reminds him of that Atlanta squad. The one that got hot at the exact right time and rode it to a championship.
“Defense is obviously our identity. Once again, you just look at the amount of runs we scored with subpar performance from a lot of guys,” Swanson said. “And I don’t say that in a disrespectful way, because I’m in that same group of what you would expect and what you are getting. And yet we’re still producing a top-(five) offense in baseball. Imagine if those things start rolling.”
The numbers back him up. The Cubs rank fourth in the majors in runs scored despite being 13th in batting average. A few regulars are underperforming. Swanson himself is hitting .216, easily the worst batting average of his career. His on-base percentage sits at .297, and he’s never finished a season below .300 before this one.
“In ’21, that’s what happened for us (in Atlanta). The last six-and-a-half weeks of the season, we all just caught fire and the rest is history,” Swanson said. “This team has a certain factor about it that just wins games even when we shouldn’t. The belief — just consistently winning games by any means necessary — that plays well for October.”
The Central gauntlet might help them
One thing working in Chicago’s favor? The pitching they see every day in the NL Central. The Brewers have Jacob Misiorowski leading the majors in strikeouts. The Pirates have Paul Skenes (seventh in K’s) and Braxton Ashcraft (12th). The Reds’ Chase Burns ranks 12th in strikeouts per nine innings.
“You’re not really going to see much better velocity and pitching than in the Central,” Swanson said. “If you think about the guys the Brewers are throwing. Think about what (we’ve seen in Pittsburgh). Think about what some of the Reds starters throw out there. The Cardinals have thrown the ball well. They have guys that throw hard out of the bullpen. That’s an iron-sharpens-iron thing going into October, too.”
The Cubs strike out a lot — 11th in the league in batter K’s per game — but they’re still scoring. The logic is straightforward: if those bats start hitting closer to their track records, this offense could get scary.
Chicago sits at 59-45, six games behind the Brewers in the division but holding the top wild card spot in the NL with a six-game cushion over the Cardinals. That’s breathing room for a team that thinks it hasn’t shown its best hand yet.
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