CLEVELAND — Dansby Swanson’s swing embodied the moment that has been missing too often during this Chicago Cubs season.
Pitchers have frequently attacked Swanson with sliders this year, a pitch he has struggled to handle. But Swanson — who has been unlocked over the past month, posting a .330/.379/.426 slash line in his last 103 plate appearances entering Monday’s series opener at Progressive Field — did not miss the usual nuisance of a slider down and away in the seventh inning.
In a game of back-and-forth swings against the Cleveland Guardians, Swanson got around on Scott Barlow’s 2-2 slider for a bases-clearing, two-out, three-run double to pull the Cubs within a run after trailing by five through six innings.
Seiya Suzuki’s sacrifice fly in the eighth tied the score, but the Guardians responded in the bottom half with Josh Naylor’s go-ahead RBI single off right-hander Julian Merryweather.
The Cubs comeback was ultimately wasted in a 9-8 loss.
“We played really good offense today,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Even had some balls hit with men in scoring position that didn’t fall, especially early in the game. So it was a really good offensive night and a nice battle back to tie the game.”
The Cubs (59-61) built a 3-0 lead thanks to Ian Happ’s two-run homer on his 30th birthday and Pete Crow-Armstrong’s solo shot. But the Guardians got to left-hander Shota Imanaga with seven runs (three earned) over the fourth and fifth innings, including a pair of home runs.
“The lineup as a whole is doing a really good job putting together quality at-bats and just pushing on bullpens, on starting pitchers, getting them out,” Happ said. “For the first game of the series, to be able to face all those guys and get the starter out early is a really big deal.
“When the lineup is working together and you have nine guys competing, having really quality at-bats, doesn’t matter what team you’re on, that’s the way you score runs.”
Monday’s game was another with timely hits from Swanson, Crow-Armstrong and catcher Miguel Amaya, who each drove in at least one run. The Cubs must get consistent production from their offense, especially as the bottom third of the order continues to hit. It’s what makes a loss like Monday’s frustrating, particularly with Imanaga on the mound.
For as many encouraging moments as the Cubs can take from Monday, largely offensively, they are at the point where moral victories don’t mean much as they chase wins. They first need to get back to .500 for the first time since early June and then attempt to climb the National League wild-card standings.
The Cubs have shown lately they are capable of not letting one loss spin into a bad stretch, and they must find a way to salvage this series against the only team with a winning record that they play over the next three weeks.
“Any game you don’t win, it’s a missed opportunity,” Happ said. “We played good baseball today and sometimes that happens. That’s a really good team that we just played, and it’s the major leagues.
“So you take the positives out of that, you take the positives out of the offense and what we did in the baserunning and move on to tomorrow.”
