2 Cubs players who looked broken are showing needed signs of life at the perfect time

Despite a loss to Jacob Misiorowski and the Brewers on Friday night, the Chicago Cubs have managed to turn things around after their lengthy skid throughout May and early June. Their recent sweep of the Mets put them more firmly in the thick of the NL wild card race, and despite a truly unbelievable number of pitching injuries they seem to be trucking along with a real shot at October baseball. They've even added David Peterson to the mix in their first buy-side trade of the year.

The problem is that all those issues on the pitching side of things mean that this team will only be able to go as far as their lineup is able to take them. Pete Crow-Armstrong is one of the most valuable players in the sport, and hitters like Ian Happ and Michael Busch have done their jobs for the most part this year. The biggest obstacle the team is going to face at this point is up the middle, where Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson have struggled to produce with the bat the way they do with the glove.

The Cubs will need Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson hitting if they're going to have any success this year

As the season has progressed, it's become increasingly clear that the Cubs' offense goes as does their middle infield duo. The team looked to be one of baseball's very best squads in the first few weeks of the season, and it's no coincidence that the pair were doing quite well at that point. Hoerner carried an OPS north of .800 into early May, while Swanson hit an unbelievable six homers (with an OPS of .975) across 18 games during the heart of the team's successes in April.

Just as they were in the middle of the Cubs' biggest successor this year, Swanson and Hoerner were in the thick of the team's struggles. In a 40-game stretch starting with May first, Swanson was slashing a .434 OPS with just one home run in that time. Hoerner didn't fair much better, as in 35 games from May 8 to June 16 he hit just .174 with a .456 OPS. Over the timeframe where both Hoerner and Swanson were struggling, the Cubs went just 12-24.

The reasons for those deep struggles can be debated. Evan Altman of Cubs Insider recently argued that Hoerner's struggles are due to an effort to hit for more power. Swanson has always been a streaky hitter with impressive highs and equally worrying lows. Whatever the cause of their struggles may be, however, it can't continue if the Cubs are going to make some noise in October this year.

That's why it's so refreshing that there have been signs of life from both players in recent days. Swanson's heroics in New York are well-documented at this point, and his recent surge of productivity with the bat has gotten him back within spitting distance of league average entering the weekend (93 OPS+). Hoerner's success has been less over-the-top, but with six doubles in a five game stretch recently he's finally begun to show signs of life as well.

Whether the dynamic middle infield duo can keep up the hot hitting long enough to make their massive slumps earlier in the year into a distant memory remains to be seen. Finding a way to keep them on track figures to be crucial for the Cubs both in the long-term (seeing as both Hoerner and Swanson are on expensive multi-year deals) and also in the shorter term. As the pitching injuries continue to pile up, that will only put more pressure on the offense, Swanson and Hoerner included.

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