Seiya Suzuki carried the Chicago Cubs through a 5-2 week, hitting four home runs and driving the club’s offense as it swept the Phillies before dropping two games to the Dodgers and ending a 10-game winning run.
Suzuki finished the stretch 10-for-25 (.400/.483/.880) with four homers, three walks and six RBIs, then went 0-for-4 in Sunday’s loss despite making two sliding defensive grabs in the outfield. Later today he has a chance to be named NL Player of the Week.
The numbers are the clearest proof of how much Suzuki meant to the Cubs over seven games: 10 hits in 25 at-bats, four long balls, a near.500 on-base rate thanks to three walks and six runs driven in. That performance came after he missed most of Spring Training with an injury suffered in the World Baseball Classic, turning a delayed start into one of the club’s defining weeks so far.
Seiya Suzuki’s hot stretch did not stand alone. Moisés Ballesteros also broke out, going 7-for-14 (.500/.588/1.000) with four doubles, a home run and three walks, while Michael Busch contributed 10-for-30 (.333/.394/.600) with two doubles, two homers and eight RBIs. The offensive balance—Suzuki’s power, Ballesteros’s extra-base contact and Busch’s run production—helped power the 10-game run the Cubs put together before they lost their last two.
There is a friction point beneath the surface successes. Manager Craig Counsell continues to shield Ballesteros from most left-handed pitching despite Ballesteros’s week-long tear; this season Ballesteros is 1-for-4 with a walk against left-handers, and Counsell’s cautious usage remains a noticeable limit on deploying him in matchups he’s already shown he can handle. Meanwhile, Suzuki’s 0-for-4 on Sunday served as a reminder that even his best weeks can end with a slump at the plate.
On the mound, splits and inconsistencies pose another question for the club. Jameson Taillon, who is listed with 34 home runs last year in the fact set, has been markedly better at home this year, registering a 2.79 ERA in 9.2 innings, and worse on the road with a 5.60 ERA in 17.2 innings. Javier Assad’s work has been the opposite on location: he owns a 10.95 ERA in 12.1 road innings but has not issued a walk in 6.2 innings at Wrigley Field, a quirk that underlines the thin margin between effective and ineffective outings in his early-season sample.
The immediate question for the Cubs is simple and consequential: can Suzuki’s hot week become a sustained return to form after a disrupted spring? If voters hand him the NL Player of the Week nod later today, it will validate a rapid rebound from an injury-marred spring and give the Cubs a clear middle-of-the-order catalyst as they try to turn this 5-2 window into longer-term consistency.
