(670 The Score) The Cubs pulled off a thrilling come-from-behind 11-10 win over the Dodgers on Tuesday at Wrigley Field, but it was made more difficult by a couple costly errors by third baseman Gage Workman.
In their 15-10 start, the Cubs have struggled to solidify the third base position. Five different players have started there in the first 25 games, including rookie Matt Shaw, who was recently demoted to Triple-A Iowa after a rough start in the big leagues. Despite the 23-year-old Shaw's early struggles, Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer still believes that Shaw can be the solution at third base for the club.
“Well, I think the ultimate hope is that Matt Shaw goes down to Triple-A, finds his swing again and comes back up,” Hoyer told Score Middays on Wednesday. “I mean, that’s sort of the hope and the plan. But, yeah, we have to do better. I don’t think there’s any way around it. We’re not providing much offense out of that position right now, which, it happens, but we’re providing poor defense. I think that’s really what’s hurting us. And it’s cost us. You can’t give these good teams out late in games. We’ve made a bunch of crucial late-inning mistakes there. We have to tighten it up defensively.
“This is a hard league and hard competition we’ve been facing. I think that through (Shaw’s) struggles, he started to make subtle adjustments to survive, to make contact, to do different things, and he started to get away from his mechanics and what’s made him good. And that’s a pretty natural thing and a normal thing for a young player.
“As we told him when he got sent out, we sent out Anthony Rizzo, we sent out Ian Happ, we sent out Kyle Schwarber, Javy Baez. All these guys have come up and down. It’s hard to come up and stay. I think he is confident, but get back to where he was and then mechanically eliminate some of those bad habits that he got in. Getting in survival mode up here, facing great pitching every night, trying to put the ball in play, that’s not who he is. He’s a guy who drives the ball for extra-base hits. He got in some bad habits. Once he gets out of those habits in Triple-A, I think we’ll see him up here again soon.”
Shaw hit .172 with one homer, three RBIs and a .535 OPS in his first 18 MLB games. He was demoted to Triple-A Iowa on April 15.