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.

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.”

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.”