Alex Bregman Hit Three Homers for the First Time in 11 Years

Alex Bregman has played 11 seasons in the big leagues. He owns two World Series rings, three All-Star nods, and a reputation as one of the smartest hitters of his generation. He had never hit three home runs in a game. Wednesday night in Washington, he finally did it, and he added seven RBIs for good measure. Both numbers are career bests. The Cubs won 12-6, and the timing could not be sharper. The Video Session That Fixed It Here is the part bettors should care about. Bregman's breakout was not random. He spent Monday's off day buried in video archives with Ben Martin, a Cubs assistant director of Major League development. They pulled clips from this season and stacked them against footage from across his career, going all the way back to Double-A Corpus Christi more than a decade ago. Martin ran KinaTrax metrics, and they found the problem. Bregman's hips and shoulders were disconnected at the start of his swing. The shoulders were closed while the hips were already open. That mismatch made it hard to cover pitches across the whole zone. "I woke up in the morning thinking about it," Bregman said. "Got here, right in the cage, trying to think about the same things that we talked about." He saw 20 pitches across his first two plate appearances Tuesday and homered in the sixth. That was the confirmation. Wednesday was the payoff. The three homers came off three different pitch types from three different arms. A sweeper from Jake Bird in the fifth for a three-run shot. A first-pitch slider from Yovanny Cruz in the sixth for two more. A high fastball from Trevor Williams in the eighth for the last two. Covering the whole zone, exactly like the fix intended. The Numbers Behind the Turn Bregman drew walks in his first two plate appearances of the night, which made him the first player in Cubs history to collect at least two free passes as part of a three-homer game. He also became the 29th player in franchise history to hit three in a game, a feat that has happened 44 times in Cubs history. The stretch that matters most starts July 27, the night he borrowed Dansby Swanson's bat and collected four hits against the Cardinals. | Split | Line | |---|---| | Since July 27 (74 PA) | .388/.419/.776, 6 HR, 8 2B, 17 RBI, 7 BB, 19 R | | Season SLG movement | .351 to .412 | | Season OPS movement | .682 to .759 | | Season home run total | 16 | Swanson had his own three-homer, eight-RBI night on July 1. That makes Bregman and Swanson the first National League teammates since RBIs became official in 1920 to each post a game with three homers and seven or more RBIs in the same season. It has only happened twice in the American League, with Aaron Judge and Jasson Dominguez in 2025 and Paul O'Neill and Mike Stanley in 1995. What This Means for the NL Central Market The Cubs are 71-50, a season-high 21 games over .500. They have won eight of nine and averaged 7.1 runs per game in that stretch. Milwaukee still leads the division at 74-47, so Chicago sits three back with roughly six weeks left. The bigger story for pricing is that Chicago's profile changed. This team was built on defense. They lead the majors at plus-85 in defensive runs saved and plus-62 in Statcast fielding run value, and that second number is 33 runs better than the second-place Blue Jays. Elite gloves plus a lineup scoring seven a night is a different animal than elite gloves plus a lineup grinding for four. Sportsbooks price recent offense heavily on team totals and run lines. If Bregman's swing fix holds, Cubs team totals get more expensive in a hurry. The window where you can still buy this offense at the old number is usually short. SBA Takeaway Do not treat this as a hot streak you fade. Treat it as new information. Bregman identified a mechanical flaw, fixed it, and immediately produced results against three different pitch shapes. That is the kind of change that tends to stick longer than a random hot week. The tactical read is on Cubs run lines and team totals over the next two weeks, while the market is still catching up. Kevin Gausman goes Thursday against Cade Cavalli in the series finale. Watch how the Cubs total is priced before first pitch. If it has not moved much off the season baseline, the market has not adjusted yet. The caution is real too. Bregman is 32, he has already had inconsistent stretches this year, and one big night against a Nationals staff that just gave a major league debut to Jackson Kent is not a full sample. Let the price tell you when the edge is gone. Related Reading - Baseball's Biggest Turnaround: The Red Sox Went 27-3 - The Rays Have the Best Record in the AL and Nobody Noticed - Chris Sale Two-Hits the Mets in a 1-0 Gem