$184 million worth of pine: Heyward benched until Monday

DENVER – Cubs manager Joe Maddon wouldn’t call it a benching, but if things go as planned during this weekend’s three-game series in Colorado, $184 million outfielder Jason Heyward will go four days without playing an inning by the time the team gets to San Diego on Monday.

Heyward’s season-long struggles at the plate have been well documented as the right fielder has descended even deeper into his 4½-month slump in the second half.

But Maddon has kept up his happy face on the first-year problems of his eight-year free agent – something made easier by the Cubs’ lofty position in the standings in spite of Heyward’s woes.

Maddon said the four-day seat on the bench started with the idea of one day off Thursday for the day game after the night game.

“Then you’ve got a lefty [Friday] and left on Sunday,” said Maddon of why he decided to extend the idle stretch of the .225-hitting, power-barren outfielder. “Just letting him chill a little bit for the weekend. The schedule will tell you a lot of times what to do. So give him a couple days off just to chill a little bit and come back for sure on Monday in San Diego.

“We’ll play him in an emergency only. Otherwise, I want him just to chill out a little bit.”

The move also removes the Cubs’ best outfield defender for a series played in one of the largest outfields in baseball, with defensively pedestrian Jorge Soler taking his spot in right.

Heyward wasn’t immediately available in the clubhouse before the game. Maddon said Heyward was fine with the plan, and that it “sounded like a good idea to him, too. … He was all for it.”

As recently as Thursday, Maddon extolled the virtues of having Heyward in the lineup daily. “You look at our record, and you look at him in right field, I can’t be more comfortable with this guy on the field while we’re playing baseball,” Maddon said then. “He’s such a good baseball player. … He’s an absolute winner, this fellow.”

By Friday he couldn’t say whether this signals a pattern of sitting Heyward at least against left-handed starters the rest of the way.

“I don’t know,” Maddon said. “I just want to give him the days off, and we’ll make that evaluation as we move it forward.”