Dansby Swanson cannot escape his batting average.
It’s like a creepy portrait in a horror movie, with eyes that follow him everywhere.
He can keep making the insane defensive plays at shortstop. He can keep being a veteran presence inside the Cubs’ clubhouse.
But try as he might, he can’t keep his currently woeful offensive numbers out of his eyeline.
“They are what they are,” Swanson said in a conversation with the Sun-Times on Sunday. “For me, it is really a lot of the mental side of moving past the [fact that the] numbers are what the numbers are and [remembering] that doesn’t define me or what I’m capable of as a player.
“There’s so many other ways you can provide value that’s not just in the batter’s box. It’s just that’s the one we always look at, unfortunately, and it’s everywhere you go. When you get into a batter’s box, it’s posted everywhere.”
Nearly four decades after lighting up for the first time, Wrigley Field is now riddled with informational video boards. So even in his home ballpark, there’s ample opportunity to learn that Swanson is batting just .183 this season. The month of May was particularly tough; he hit just .151 with a .448 OPS.
To say Swanson is slumping would be putting it mildly.
“He’s been in a rough patch here for a while,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He’s a better hitter than what he’s been showing. … You go through this stuff. This one’s probably a little worse than he’s gone through, and that causes you to ask some questions as the player.
“But he’s not going to stop competing.”
Swanson is a two-time All Star with plenty of past success. Last season, his 24 home runs were three off a career high. While defense might be his best attribute, he’s expected to be far more than a defensive specialist.
But his recent struggles have bred visible frustration, at times. He was disgusted by a bases-loaded strikeout Saturday in St. Louis, throwing his bat, helmet and batting gloves to the ground around home plate.
Looking up at a Jumbotron every night is a constant reminder of what’s not going right. For Swanson, in his 11th major league season, it’s his job to deal with it, to figure it out.
But nobody said it was easy to get over those numbers.
“The cliche answer would be, ‘Yeah, you get over them.’ But at the same time, it’s hard. They’re everywhere,” he said. “It’s hard. It is. We’re all human. We all want to do great, we all want to be great. We all want to prove ourselves every single day.
“Sometimes you’ve got to accept it: ‘It is what it is. It doesn’t define me. It doesn’t define my worth as a player.’ But also with the sense of urgency of, ‘Yeah, you want to get things right, too.’ It’s quite the unique blend.”
So how can Swanson put himself in the proper headspace to dig himself out of this hole?
The most obvious answer is to keep playing his typical Gold Glove defense at shortstop. He’s also taking pride in his career-high walk rate of 13.3 percent, which has helped him rank second on the team in runs scored. Indeed, there are other ways to contribute.
“Really,” Swanson said, “I’m just grinding my way through it to provide whatever I can to help us win games, because that’s ultimately the end goal.”
But a $28 million player cannot settle for defense and walks alone.
Instead, Swanson is taking inspiration from his teammates.
“The cool part about so many guys in this clubhouse is no one settles for anything,” he said. “People understand what they’re capable of and are always working toward their peak, toward their ceiling, toward whatever they deem is the best version of themselves. It’s almost like no one’s ever satisfied with what any number looks like.”
Swanson’s numbers aren’t going to go away until he makes them. Until he starts hitting with more consistency, he’s going to keep staring at that frustratingly low batting average on every scoreboard in every stadium he walks into.
Or more appropriately, that number is going to keep staring at him.
