A few weeks ago, Craig Counsell, Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly and assistant hitting coaches Juan “Pipi” Cabreja and John Mallee brainstormed how they could help unlock some more out of Miguel Amaya at the plate.

On July 3, Amaya had gone 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts and the team decided having him sit for the next few games — and starting Tomás Nido — would give him time to work on something that could get the ball rolling offensively for him.

The Cubs coaching staff thought eliminating Amaya’s leg kick in his batting stance and switching to more of a toe drag in his load could help him thrive at the plate.

“With the leg kick, it was hard for him to consistently have good timing and rhythm and so we talked with him,” Cabreja said.

It wasn’t an easy ask.

Amaya had a leg kick his whole life playing baseball — it’s what’s been comfortable to him.

It took one of the game’s best recent sluggers to convince him to get uncomfortable.

Cabreja reached out to Nelson Cruz, who made a similar adjustment during his career from a leg kick to a toe tap drag that helped him club 464 career home runs and hit .274 in his 19-year career.

The Dominican slugger was blunt with Amaya.

“I showed Miguel a message that he sent that said he didn’t have anything to lose because he was hitting .186,” Cabreja said.

That helped serve as an epiphany for the 24-year-old backstop. The leg kick was what was easy — what he knew and could fall back on.

“But I’ve never found consistency in that way of batting,” Amaya said. “So, what we wanted was to be consistent so that we can have results and help the team.”

The early work was worrisome.

“He was scared because he felt weak,” Cabreja said. “He didn’t feel strong. In the cage, he felt weak and without any force.”

The swing felt foreign. Amaya felt he needed to overswing to generate the power he had with the leg kick.

But Cabreja and Kelly worked with him in the cages, working without a leg kick and having him hit the baseball, ensuring him that he didn’t need to swing any harder.

To Amaya’s surprise, he wasn’t feeble.

“After a short while, he realized he had the same power, the same exit velocity that he had with the leg kick,” Cabreja said. “That was like a surprise for him that he didn’t need to generate more power because he was already strong.”

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A catcher implementing a swing change, though, isn’t like a position player. A manager can avoid a fourth outfielder or backup infielder for a few days while they tweak their swings. A catcher, even a backup, must play consistently. The demand on a catcher, physically, takes its toll so a No. 2 backstop will still play at least a couple of times a week.

On July 7, Amaya started the finale of the Angels series, a Cubs’ 5-0 win where he went 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI. He went 0-for-4 in his next start on July 10, but then things clicked — and in a big way.

Amaya went 2-for-3 on July 12 and has collected a hit in every game he’s played in since — a 7-game hitting streak in which he’s batting a whopping .643 with a 1.579 OPS.

He feels more in control at the plate. His timing is synched up and he doesn’t feel like he’s chasing as much — his .722 on-base percentage in those 7 games confirms that.

“The new stance has helped me control the zone more,” Amaya said. “It’s what I’ve been doing — not trying to swing at bad pitches.”

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For Counsell and the Cubs’ hitting staff, it’s been rewarding to see the openness to change, the work to do so and then success pay off for a player.

“You’re proud of Miguel from that aspect, that he made an adjustment and got some results from it,” Counsell said. “It’s something that he can continue to build on and keep feeling more comfortable with it.”

It’s a lesson and a reminder for Amaya and the team.

“I think it’s important to make changes in life and things at first are hard, but the hardest thing is not trying,” Cabreja said. “He has nothing to lose, and I think that this is a good time in the season where you have to make adjustments to keep going up. He agreed. We watched video of guys that hit kind of like that, I shared my ideas and we went and did it.

“Credit to him that he was able to adjust and embrace the changes that he wanted to do.”