Cubs roster move: Kyle Schwarber sent to Triple-A Iowa

Kyle Schwarber’s hitting woes have been discussed almost on a daily basis, here and in other places.

His OPS for June is .849. That’s good! But that is almost exclusively driven by power: seven of his nine hits this month have been for extra bases (three doubles, four home runs). He’s also struck out in 15 of 46 at-bats in June and 75 times in 222 at-bats this year.

The Cubs decided Thursday that Kyle needs a bit of time at Triple-A Iowa to get his hitting straightened out:

There’s no official word from the team on this, nor who’d be taking Schwarber’s 25-man roster spot. I’ll update this post with that info when it’s made official.

UPDATE: Here are the Cubs’ roster moves for Thursday.

(More on the Jason Heyward to the DL move here.)

As I wrote three weeks ago, I think this is the right thing to do. The Royals did it with Mike Moustakas three years ago and the Cardinals recently sent Randal Grichuk to the minor leagues.

This stint doesn’t have to be very long. Perhaps it will last only as long as the Cubs’ road trip and he’ll return when the team comes back to Wrigley Field as a better hitter.

That’s what the Cubs need, the Schwarber who hit .246/.355/.487 with 16 home runs in 232 at-bats in 2015, or the Schwarber who was so good in last year’s World Series. Hopefully that version of Kyle returns from Iowa soon.