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USATSI

The Cubs beat the Padres on Thursday afternoon, 5-2, and the big stories -- aside from a good outing from previously-struggling Cubs starter Hayden Wesneski -- revolved around the long ball. 

Manny Machado homered for the Padres to get the scoring started, just his second of the year. In the bottom half of that same inning, Eric Hosmer and Nelson Velázquez homered to give the Cubs the lead. Those were most notable because the youngster Velázquez is fighting to stay on the big-league roster and is hitting .462/.563/1.077 in his limited action. 

Late in the game, Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson homered to give his team insurance. Let's focus on that one. 

The 29-year-old Swanson was the Cubs' big-splash signing this past offseason with a seven-year, $177 million deal. It had to be a relief to finally get that first home run under his belt in his 23rd game with the club. 

Swanson has actually gotten off to a good start overall in his Cubs tenure, despite the lack of the long ball. He was on fire to start the season, sitting with a .368 average through the Cubs' first 15 games. He cooled off a bit in the ensuing several games, but is still hitting .284 with a .400 on-base percentage. He entered the season a career .255 hitter with a .321 OBP. It was just weird to see such a shortfall in the power department. 

In 2020, Swanson hit 10 homers in 60 games, a full-season pace of 27. In 2021, he hit 27 actual homers, then followed that up with 25 last season. The 22-game homerless span (24, if we go back to the end of last season) was one of the longest droughts of his career and the longest in a single season since 2019. 

The logical (hopeful?) line of thinking that follows is that perhaps he'll got on a bit of a power surge now with the mental block removed. 

The Cubs are now 14-10 and head to Miami for a three-game weekend series with the Marlins.