Here at Sun-Times Sports HQ, our week began with a Sunday cover page featuring Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson.

He wasn’t hitting. His swings were so impotent, he might as well have been wielding a rubber chicken. He gave “Mendoza line” eponym Mario Mendoza a good name.

To put it bluntly, Cubs fans were ready to see Swanson, his $177 million contract and his pathetic 2026 offensive numbers fired into the sun.

So we made a big deal out of it, of course, because that’s what we do. We’re real sweethearts.

“I know I can [hit],” Swanson told me for the accompanying Sunday column.

And the money quote, highlighted on that cover page:

“I literally feel it every day when I show up here: Today is the day the dam breaks.”

Well, well, wouldn’t you know it? The dam has broken.

With astonishing suddenness, Swanson has gone from one of the worst-hitting position players in all of baseball to the hottest Cubs hitter not named Pete Crow-Armstrong. From April 28 to June 19, Swanson had a grand total of one multi-hit game. But his two-homer, seven-RBI eruption Wednesday in the first game of a doubleheader against the Mets was his third multi-hit game in a row and gave him eight hits, four homers, 14 RBI and 22 total bases over his last five games — a sensational, if brief, stretch.

Who does this guy think he is, Dansby Swanson the two-time All-Star?

And where the heck has he been hiding?

“In a way, I felt like I never really went anywhere,” Swanson said after uncorking a three-run blast off Mets starter Nolan McLean and crushing a grand slam off reliever Jonathan Pintero. “It just wasn’t necessarily showing up in the box score.”

It’s showing up now. And it’s going to have to keep showing up considering the Cubs, whose pitchers have flowed to the injured list like gas through a pipeline all season, are standing at a terrifying crossroads.

Starting pitchers Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown both went on the injured list before Wednesday’s doubleheader began. It turns out Cabrera, who trashed a hamstring while accidentally doing the splits the night before, isn’t as good at gymnastics as he is at baseball. And who knew Brown, who has a strained neck, even had a neck until he lost the ability to do a proper doubletake?

Jameson Taillon (left hammy): not close to returning. Justin Steele (flexor strain): perhaps just a figment of fans’ imaginations. Cade Horton (Tommy John): anybody remember him?

Matthew Boyd is coming off the injured list to start Thursday’s game, which raises a question: Is he crazy? Doesn’t he realize it’s much safer for a Cubs pitcher to stash himself on a beach in Mexico?

Any more pitchers lost and the Cubs can forget about making the playoffs. They can practically forget about fielding a team. Year 6 under president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and Year 3 on manager Craig Counsell’s watch has “Warning: disaster ahead” written all over it.

“We’re just going to keep plugging away, keep going at it,” Swanson said.

That’s great. Say, just spitballing here, but any chance former Cubs “Professor” Kyle Hendricks has something left in his right arm? If so, it’s time to quit his special-assistant gig with the Tigers and report directly to the Cubs’ rotation. The Game 7 starter in the 2016 World Series, who last pitched for the Cubs in 2024, might no longer be able to hit 88 mph on the radar gun, but 82 or 84 is certainly possible. He’s hired!

TV analyst Jim Deshaies, a former big-league hurler himself, might as well find the bullpen and begin stretching out his 66-year-old arm. He can bring 70-year-old Rick Sutcliffe with him, not to mention former late-inning specialist Anthony Rizzo.

It’s a strange time to watch the Cubs, a talented team with bottomless resources yet almost no safety net left whatsoever.

“At the end of the day, no one feels bad for us,” Swanson said. “The strength of this group can lie in the position-player group.”

As if there’s any other choice, right?

Crow-Armstrong has flipped a switch from a brutal 2025 second half at the plate — and a very rough start to 2026 — to now being in the National League MVP conversation. Nothing wrong with finishing runner-up to Shohei Ohtani.

Swanson — back on our Sports cover already — appears ready to roll.

Who will grab the rubber chicken — make that the baton — next? Alex Bregman isn’t being paid $35 million a year to do a Patrick Wisdom impression. Nico Hoerner’s bat has been AWOL since early May. No one’s about to call Seiya Suzuki an All-Star snub this season.

Any of them would be nice. All of them might be necessary.

Here at Sun-Times Sports HQ, our week began with a Sunday cover page featuring Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson.

He wasn’t hitting. His swings were so impotent, he might as well have been wielding a rubber chicken. He gave “Mendoza line” eponym Mario Mendoza a good name.

To put it bluntly, Cubs fans were ready to see Swanson, his $177 million contract and his pathetic 2026 offensive numbers fired into the sun.

So we made a big deal out of it, of course, because that’s what we do. We’re real sweethearts.

“I know I can [hit],” Swanson told me for the accompanying Sunday column.

And the money quote, highlighted on that cover page:

“I literally feel it every day when I show up here: Today is the day the dam breaks.”

Well, well, wouldn’t you know it? The dam has broken.

With astonishing suddenness, Swanson has gone from one of the worst-hitting position players in all of baseball to the hottest Cubs hitter not named Pete Crow-Armstrong. From April 28 to June 19, Swanson had a grand total of one multi-hit game. But his two-homer, seven-RBI eruption Wednesday in the first game of a doubleheader against the Mets was his third multi-hit game in a row and gave him eight hits, four homers, 14 RBI and 22 total bases over his last five games — a sensational, if brief, stretch.

Who does this guy think he is, Dansby Swanson the two-time All-Star?

And where the heck has he been hiding?

“In a way, I felt like I never really went anywhere,” Swanson said after uncorking a three-run blast off Mets starter Nolan McLean and crushing a grand slam off reliever Jonathan Pintero. “It just wasn’t necessarily showing up in the box score.”

It’s showing up now. And it’s going to have to keep showing up considering the Cubs, whose pitchers have flowed to the injured list like gas through a pipeline all season, are standing at a terrifying crossroads.

Starting pitchers Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown both went on the injured list before Wednesday’s doubleheader began. It turns out Cabrera, who trashed a hamstring while accidentally doing the splits the night before, isn’t as good at gymnastics as he is at baseball. And who knew Brown, who has a strained neck, even had a neck until he lost the ability to do a proper doubletake?

Jameson Taillon (left hammy): not close to returning. Justin Steele (flexor strain): perhaps just a figment of fans’ imaginations. Cade Horton (Tommy John): anybody remember him?

Matthew Boyd is coming off the injured list to start Thursday’s game, which raises a question: Is he crazy? Doesn’t he realize it’s much safer for a Cubs pitcher to stash himself on a beach in Mexico?

Any more pitchers lost and the Cubs can forget about making the playoffs. They can practically forget about fielding a team. Year 6 under president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and Year 3 on manager Craig Counsell’s watch has “Warning: disaster ahead” written all over it.

“We’re just going to keep plugging away, keep going at it,” Swanson said.

That’s great. Say, just spitballing here, but any chance former Cubs “Professor” Kyle Hendricks has something left in his right arm? If so, it’s time to quit his special-assistant gig with the Tigers and report directly to the Cubs’ rotation. The Game 7 starter in the 2016 World Series, who last pitched for the Cubs in 2024, might no longer be able to hit 88 mph on the radar gun, but 82 or 84 is certainly possible. He’s hired!

TV analyst Jim Deshaies, a former big-league hurler himself, might as well find the bullpen and begin stretching out his 66-year-old arm. He can bring 70-year-old Rick Sutcliffe with him, not to mention former late-inning specialist Anthony Rizzo.

It’s a strange time to watch the Cubs, a talented team with bottomless resources yet almost no safety net left whatsoever.

“At the end of the day, no one feels bad for us,” Swanson said. “The strength of this group can lie in the position-player group.”

As if there’s any other choice, right?

Crow-Armstrong has flipped a switch from a brutal 2025 second half at the plate — and a very rough start to 2026 — to now being in the National League MVP conversation. Nothing wrong with finishing runner-up to Shohei Ohtani.

Swanson — back on our Sports cover already — appears ready to roll.

Who will grab the rubber chicken — make that the baton — next? Alex Bregman isn’t being paid $35 million a year to do a Patrick Wisdom impression. Nico Hoerner’s bat has been AWOL since early May. No one’s about to call Seiya Suzuki an All-Star snub this season.

Any of them would be nice. All of them might be necessary.