CHICAGO — Matt Shaw sat in the batting cages at Wrigley Field, steps away from the home dugout and reflected.

It was the first day back from the All-Star break, and the 23-year-old was looking to turn the page on a trying start to his big-league career. The Cubs third baseman hadn’t swung a bat in the cages during the time off and was ready to get back to work.  

He’s a very religious young man and looked for divine intervention to help him get his offensive season on track. So, he looked up in the cage and saw two balls suspended that looked like perfect targets. He dug into the box and had the idea to open his stance.

“God, if I hit the two balls up there, I’m going to do this open stance,” Shaw prayed.

CLANK. He did it.

For good measure, he took another hack.

CLANK. Shaw flushed it again.

“I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m gonna do an open stance for now,’” Shaw said. “That was it. And then I just haven’t really thought about.”

The results have been absolutely staggering. Shaw went 1-for-3 in that first game but really went on a tear the next day. Shaw hit a pinch-hit home run in the seventh inning of the Cubs’ 6-0 win over the Boston Red Sox on July 19 and finished 2-for-2. He has collected a knock in every game since the All-Star break, an eight-game hitting streak entering Sunday in which he’s hitting .478 with four home runs, nine RBI and a 1.043 OPS.

More importantly, though, it has unlocked mental freedom that he felt he lacked in the first half of the season.

The cerebral part of playing in the major leagues is real and a difficult aspect of the game for young players to fight through.

“The environment is really different,” Shaw said. “You have 10-year, 12-year major-league veterans. So you have to kind of learn how to navigate that. You have to learn how to be a young guy again and make sure you’re the first one in the cage and all that stuff and then, on the field, there’s obviously a pressure to win and be a great team.

“So you’re kind of figuring out all of that stuff, and so it just takes time, because you’re really focused on making sure you respect all the guys and all the little nuances that you have to do as a young guy.”

When the results don’t fall, those types of things can way even more on a young player. Shaw was slashing .198/.276/.280 (.586 OPS) before the Midsummer Classic and wanted to use the time away to reset.

“During the break, it was just taking some time to re-realize my motivations in the game,” Shaw said. “Why am I playing the game? Because I love baseball, give back and stuff like that.

“And remembering those little things kind of helped me to realize, ‘Wow, I’m not playing the game for a big contract, I’m not playing the game, just to hit 70 home runs. I play the game because I love playing it, and realizing that, again, was really helpful to have that freedom on the field.”

The results are even more impressive given what’s happened surrounding the team. After his first half struggles, and on a team with not only playoff aspirations but dreams of a deep playoff run, there was some external speculation.

Could the Cubs use some of their prospect capital to upgrade the hot corner and even potentially acquire arguably the premier hitter on the trade market – Arizona Diamondbacks slugger Eugenio Suárez –before Thursday’s trade deadline?

“Certainly, [Shaw’s] played great defense for us, but I think that’s a position and then just thinking about the position playing group and just ensuring adding depth, it is something we’ll look at as well,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said before the Cubs kicked off the second half. “We’re not going to completely turn over the 26-man roster, but thinking about just how we can get deeper and potentially ensure some areas of the roster makes sense.”

Shaw, for his part, has tuned out the noise. He doesn’t have social media accounts and claimed he had no idea of the reports of the Cubs’ interest in Suárez.

“I’m not super familiar with what’s going on,” Shaw said. “I’m not really focused on that stuff. I haven’t read anything, and I haven’t heard anything.

“For me, we’re a good team that’s going to keep playing good baseball. That’s the stuff that I’m hearing. That’s all I can really say.”

That freedom has allowed him to find his footing in the major leagues. Whether that sways Hoyer and his brass from upgrading the position before Thursday remains to be seen. But it’s created a “good problem” that teams always strive for.

The Cubs saw Shaw as the long-term option at third base and knew, after the normal major-league development most every player goes through, he could be a solid offensive contributor in the big leagues. He might be showing signs of being just that.

And it stems back to a moment of reflection in the batting cages at Wrigley Field.

“The ability to really play free, I think that just is something I hadn’t experienced in the big leagues,” Shaw said. “Being able to come back to that now that I have that experience, I think it builds that confidence for sure, knowing that when I’m just kind of relaxed and playing free, that’s when I play my best.”