Happ’s 100th Dinger May Have Been Even More Special for a Young Fan, Rotation, Suzuki, Reyes, and Other Cubs Bullets

Spoiler-free comments on the premier of ‘House of the Dragon’: that was a success. Nothing is going to replicate, precisely, those first four to five seasons of ‘Game of Thrones’ (six was fine, seven was terrible, and eight was a series destroyer), and I hope HOD doesn’t try to be exactly that. Just live in that same world, tell your own story, and don’t get hacky-stupid-cheesy-obvious-absurd.

  • What a great day for Ian Happ, who hit homer number 100 in his career, but maybe even more special for the fan who caught the ball:
  • Yup. It was his 10th birthday, and he’s at Wrigley Field celebrating, and he snags Ian Happ’s 100th career homer. His reaction when he got the ball, man. So awesome. Baseball is incredible sometimes.
  • As for Happ, it’s pretty special to see your name appearing on the various lists in baseball history. He’s just the 26th Cub to hit 100 homers with the team, and there’s also this (via Cubs.com):
  • Last week in Washington, D.C., Happ enjoyed a two-homer game that put him on a short list among all-time switch-hitters. He joined Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, Mark Teixeira, José Cruz and Ruben Sierra as the only switch-hitters in MLB history (since 1901) to start a career with at least 11 homers in their first six seasons.

    True, that list is helped by an arbitrary end point, but there are also two Hall of Famers in that short grouping. That brings a smile to Happ’s face.

    “When you look at it in the context of the game, in the history of the game,” Happ said, “and you see the numbers, people that have done it all-time — there’s a lot of people that have played this game — and to be able to be up there, some of those things you get to check off, it’s humbling. And it’s something that I take a lot of pride in.”

  • The Cubs have a bit of a rotation mess ahead thanks to the combined impact of Keegan Thompson hitting the IL, Wade Miley not being able to go, and a double-header on Tuesday.
  • Luke Farrell did not make his scheduled start at Iowa this weekend, so you can safely assume he’ll be called up for one of the spots. Farrell, 31, has been with the Rangers and Twins since he was last with the Cubs back in 2018. He has been starting at Iowa this year, mostly not successfully. His last three outings have come in multi-inning relief.
  • Seiya Suzuki’s big day at the plate (3-3, 2B, HR, BB) pushed him back over “average” on the season – .249/.323/.422/107 wRC+. Still not where he needs to be in order to be a quality regular in right field, but we always had to allow for some adjustment time (not just within this first season, but through it). If you’d told me he would finish the year in the, say, 115 wRC+ range, I definitely would’ve called that a success. Still very much on the table. Then you would like to see a step forward from there in 2023.
  • Franmil Reyes saw his new-with-Cubs hitting streak end this weekend, but overall he’s hitting a robust .333/.340/.622/160 wRC+ with his new club through 11 games. Great read here on how Reyes’ season has changed:
  • As you can see in there, Reyes has gotten a little better at not chasing as the season has gone on, and a WHOLE LOT better at swinging at more pitches in the zone (and not whiffing when he does). A lot goes into that kind of improvement, but part of it is just the mental reset of knowing what you’re supposed to be doing up there, and what you’re capable of. It helped that Cubs assistant hitting coach Johnny Washington has known Reyes and worked with him for years. A selection from The Athletic piece:
  • Washington saw Reyes take swings in the cage and watched his first few at-bats with the Cubs to make sure nothing was off mechanically.

    “He said, ‘Dawg, you’re good. I don’t see anything weird,’” Reyes said. “He said to select your pitches, put a good swing on the ball and you’re going to take off.”

    Pitch selection was a big part of what Reyes feels like he’s corrected over the last two weeks. Reyes said Washington told him the one thing he was doing with Cleveland was losing his posture. Why? It was because he was bending at the waist and trying to reach pitches he couldn’t really make contact with, let alone do damage on.

    “I needed to be more calmed down at the plate and not swing at everything,” Reyes said. “At the beginning of the season, (I was chasing every) slider. I blame myself. Last year, I had a lot of sliders out of the zone that I hit out of the field. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so powerful.’ I don’t have to pick a zone, because if it’s high, if it’s away, if I put the barrel on it, it’ll go. But this year, pitchers executed better and threw more breaking balls than any year before. I was just chasing every pitch, pitches that weren’t close to the zone.”

  • As a bat-only guy who could make close to $6 million in arbitration next year, Reyes is going to have to continue to be very good at the plate – results and underlying metrics – for the Cubs to tender him in December. That said, he basically just has to convince the Cubs that the first four month of this season was a totally aberrant blip, because otherwise, for his career, he does just hit. And you can already tell how well he’s fitting in and how well he’s liked in the clubhouse. (Did you see, by the way, that he was the first guy out to grab Willson Contreras after the walk-off on Saturday?)
  • Jon Lester came to Wrigley Field yesterday, getting all the love he deserves:
  • A heads up if you like these – the last time they went on sale, they sold out in a minute:
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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