Chicago Cubs’ Alex Bregman finds an offensive groove with an assist from Dansby Swanson’s bat

ST. LOUIS — Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson is used to his bat being a go-to selection when a teammate needs some hits.

Former teammates Travis d’Arnaud and Joc Pederson would often borrow his bat, and Swanson had suggested to Alex Bregman for a while to consider using a bigger bat like his.

“When you’re kind of searching for something, sometimes even something that simple can kind of help get you out of your own way,” Swanson said.

Before Monday’s series opener at Busch Stadium, Bregman finally decided to try Swanson’s bat — a Marucci JD20 model, 34 inches in length in both 32 and 31 1/2 ounces — which these days is considered bigger than what most players use.

“It was funny when I found out that he was going to do it,” Swanson said. “I was like, dude, it’s guaranteed he’s getting four hits tonight.”

Swanson’s prediction proved prescient.

Bregman recorded his first four-hit game as a Cub. Using the bat again in Tuesday night’s 10-2 win, he tallied three more hits. His seven hits in his last two games, both wins against the Cardinals, tied his career high for most in a two-game stretch, something he hadn’t done since 2018. Four of those hits went for extra bases, including a home run Monday.

In addition to using Swanson’s bat, Bregman choked up on the handle and put his hands further back in his stance, “like way further back,” he explained. Bregman tried to get his bat plane a little bit more behind him, which he admitted was a weird thought. Ultimately, the goal was to stay back more, tweaks that initially started over the weekend in Pittsburgh.

“Not being super direct and short to the ball, kind of getting on plane deeper and hopefully the heavy bat and also my hands being further back kind of holds me back more,” Bregman said. “I’d kind of been flying forward and cutting the corner and cutting everything. That’s why I’m popping up a lot and missing pitches in the middle. So (Monday) was a better step in the right direction.

“It probably doesn’t look like anything was really different to somebody who doesn’t watch my swing like 10,000 times, but for me it looks like a completely different swing. But at the end of the day, baseball’s crazy. Sometimes you need one swing to kind of get you going.”

The Cubs have scored the third-most runs in baseball entering Wednesday, even with Bregman well below his career offensive production. It speaks to the depth of the Cubs’ lineup and how much more dangerous the group can become if they get these types of multihit, extra-base nights from Bregman.

“It is a long season, it’s 162 games, and I’ve gone through it in my career where I’ve had years where it doesn’t look pretty in the middle and then you finish up in a good spot, and I think offenses are the same way,” left fielder Ian Happ said. “We have so many good players in this lineup that play every day, and I have all the confidence in the world that this group is going to put up those kind of numbers because that’s who we are.”

Bregman isn’t afraid to tinker when his swing doesn’t feel or look right. That’s inherently part of baseball, even for a 10-year veteran like Bregman. As much as he’s been searching through his work in the cage, on-field batting practice and pouring through video, sometimes one swing, one game, one tiny adjustment makes things click.

No matter how encouraging Bregman’s production has been so far in St. Louis, two games don’t guarantee to carry over into the rest of the season. But an already dangerous Cubs offense becomes even more dynamic if Bregman hits like this version more consistently down the stretch.

“This game and I think sports nowadays, in general, evolves so fast that you always have to be willing and able to find ways to kind of evolve with it,” Swanson said. “It’s hard, right? Because we all have certain special superpowers as players that make us us, which you can never lose. But at the same time, you have to learn how to evolve in other areas to continue to allow those superpowers to show up. He’s obviously been great at that and had an unbelievable career up to this point, doing how he does it.”