Alex Bregman spent the Cubs' off-day Monday night in a video deep dive with Ben Martin, an assistant director of Major League development for the organization. The two men pulled up KinaTrax biomechanical data and worked through footage stretching back to Bregman's Double-A days in Corpus Christi, searching for a mechanical flaw that had kept him from finding consistency over his first three-plus months in Chicago.
They found it. Bregman's hips and shoulders were disconnected at the start of his swing — hips open, shoulders closed — preventing him from covering pitches to all parts of the strike zone. Two days later, on Wednesday night at Nationals Park, the adjustment showed.
Bregman hit three home runs and drove in seven runs as the Cubs beat the Nationals 12-6. Both marks are career bests for the 11-year veteran. It was also his first three-homer game in the big leagues.
With two walks in his first two plate appearances, Bregman became the first player in Cubs franchise history to draw at least two walks in a three-homer game. The last player to do it across baseball was Will Smith of the Dodgers, on July 5, 2024. For the Cubs organization, Bregman became the 29th player to hit three home runs in a single game — a feat accomplished 44 times total in the franchise's history.
The win pushed the Cubs to 71-50 and pulled them within three games of the National League Central-leading Brewers, who sit at 74-47. Chicago has won eight of its last nine games and averaged 7.1 runs per game in that stretch.
"It's a credit to how he works every single day," Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. "He is relentless with his search to be himself and to be the best version of himself."
Bregman was not alone in a historic night for the Cubs lineup. Dansby Swanson also homered Wednesday and added an RBI double, finishing with multiple RBIs in the win. Swanson himself had a three-homer, eight-RBI game on July 1 this season.
That pairing created a piece of baseball history: Bregman and Swanson are the first teammates in the National League since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920 to each post a game in the same season with at least three home runs and seven RBIs. The feat has happened twice in the American League, both times involving Yankees teammates: Aaron Judge and Jasson Domínguez did it in 2025, and Paul O'Neill and Mike Stanley did it in 1995.
"The track record speaks for itself," Swanson said of Bregman. "For him, it's about being able to be convicted and believing in something that he's doing. I feel like he's finally found that."
Bregman's turnaround matters beyond one box score. The Cubs signed him this offseason expecting a middle-of-the-order force, and for most of the first half he delivered inconsistently. The stretch he is on now — at the heart of an eight-of-nine run — looks like the version Chicago paid for. The Brewers still control the division, but Chicago is making this a race.
