{"id":966694,"date":"2026-07-29T11:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T11:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/966694\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T11:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T11:45:22","slug":"chicago-cubs-alex-bregman-hits-with-dansby-swansons-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/966694\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs’ Alex Bregman hits with Dansby Swanson’s bat"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS \u2014 Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson is used to his bat being a go-to selection when a teammate needs some hits.<\/p>\n

Former teammates Travis d\u2019Arnaud 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re kind of searching for something, sometimes even something that simple can kind of help get you out of your own way,\u201d Swanson said.<\/p>\n

Before Monday\u2019s series opener at Busch Stadium, Bregman finally decided to try Swanson\u2019s bat \u2014 a Marucci JD20 model, 34 inches in length in both 32 and 31 1\/2 ounces \u2014 which these days is considered bigger than what most players use.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was funny when I found out that he was going to do it,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cI was like, dude, it\u2019s guaranteed he\u2019s getting four hits tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swanson\u2019s prediction proved prescient.<\/p>\n

Bregman recorded his first four-hit game as a Cub. Using the bat again in Tuesday night\u2019s 10-2 win<\/a>, 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\u2019t done since 2018. Four of those hits went for extra bases, including a home run Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Cubs’ Alex Bregman runs the bases after hitting a solo home run during the third inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Monday, July 27, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo\/Scott Kane)<\/p>\n

Bregman\u2019s first season of his five-year contract has not yet played out as either side envisioned. He entered Monday batting .234 with a .682 OPS, 10 home runs and 44 RBIs. It\u2019s an extremely small two-game sample size, of course. But it\u2019s an encouraging sign that Bregman and the Cubs hope can be built upon for a strong final two months of the regular season.<\/p>\n

In addition to using Swanson\u2019s bat, Bregman choked up on the handle and put his hands further back<\/a> in his stance, \u201clike way further back,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot 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,\u201d Bregman said. \u201cI\u2019d kind of been flying forward and cutting the corner and cutting everything. That\u2019s why I\u2019m popping up a lot and missing pitches in the middle. So (Monday) was a better step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably doesn\u2019t look like anything was really different to somebody who doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s crazy. Sometimes you need one swing to kind of get you going.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019 lineup and how much more dangerous the group can become if they get these types of multi-hit, extra-base nights from Bregman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a long season, it\u2019s 162 games, and I\u2019ve gone through it in my career where I\u2019ve had years where it doesn\u2019t look pretty in the middle and then you finish up in a good spot, and I think offenses are the same way,\u201d left fielder Ian Happ said. \u201cWe 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\u2019s who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bregman isn\u2019t afraid to tinker when his swing doesn\u2019t feel or look right. That\u2019s inherently part of baseball, even for a 10-year veteran like Bregman. As much as he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

No matter how encouraging Bregman\u2019s production has been so far in St. Louis, two games don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019s obviously been great at that and had an unbelievable career up to this point, doing how he does it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson is used to his bat being a go-to selection when…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":966695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[2730,960,1271,388353,16075,5386,1818,388352,1822,3692],"class_list":["post-966694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-alex-bregman","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cubs-offense","tag-dansby-swanson","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-marucci-jd20-bat","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117003101794075078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/966695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}