Welcome back to the Cubs Beat newsletter. Jordan Bastian has covered baseball for MLB.com since 2005, including the Cubs since the 2019 season. |
CHICAGO -- Ryan Pressly has made a career out of having a short memory and quickly turning the page mentally after a rough outing. That is a part of the skill set that has made the veteran right-hander an effective late-inning arm for over a decade in the Majors. Even Pressly admitted that was difficult after his disastrous appearance against the Giants last month. “Oh no, that one sucked. That wasn’t a very fun couple of days there,” Pressly said recently. “Obviously, it was my career worst. It’s unfortunate that Cubbie fans got to see a career-worst, but unfortunately, it happens. The best thing you can do is just be ready to go whenever they call you to go out there and get more outs.” Since the outing in question on May 6 -- when Pressly was charged with nine runs without recording an out in the 11th inning of a loss to San Francisco -- the 36-year-old has been on a strong run out of the Cubs’ bullpen. In the 16 games that have followed, Pressly has 14 strikeouts and just three walks, with one unearned run yielded in 15 innings. |
When Pressly went “back to the drawing board,” the process was less about spotting any mechanical flaws and more about why the Giants were able to attack him in such a relentless and swift fashion. One of the ideas that the Cubs’ pitching group floated was having Pressly get feedback from one of Chicago’s hitters. Pressly sought insight from Ian Happ. The veteran wanted to know how the outfielder would prepare for facing the righty. • Cubs celebrate a Happ-y Father's Day in walk-off fashion “There’s definitely times where guys will ask, ‘If I throw this pitch in this situation, or this pitch off that pitch, what do you think?’” Happ said. “He wanted kind of like, ‘What would you be looking for against me? How would you game plan for me?’” “There’s a lot of credit that goes around for that,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “But it’s really just, let’s try to uncover everything we can do to help a teammate. There might have been six ideas that didn’t work, right? But you’re just trying to do everything you can do to maybe get a different way to think about a problem.” Pressly appreciated that Happ was willing to put together that type of report. |
“I added a little bit extra to see if he could help me, and he did,” Pressly said. “He pulled me off to the side and he helped me out a lot.”
One piece of feedback was that Pressly might benefit from altering his pitch usage -- something the righty has adjusted since the start of the season. Pressly has decreased his slider use (28.3% in the first month, compared to 12.2% in June, entering Sunday) and upped his four-seamer rate (32.5% in the first month, compared to 46.9% in June), while also featuring more sinkers and fewer curveballs.
“We were seeing kind of a pattern that I was falling into,” Pressly said. “With the pitch repertoire that I have, we shouldn’t be doing that necessarily. We’ve got to mix it in a little bit more and keep guys off-balance.”
Pressly has seen his velocity tick up -- he had his two hardest-thrown fastballs of the season on June 9 in Philadelphia -- along with his swing-and-miss rate and strikeout rate since the start of the season. While multiple people were involved in helping Pressly get back on track, Happ enjoyed playing a small role.
“It’s really easy to be stubborn and to kind of rely on what you’ve done in the past,” Happ said. “It’s a lot harder to reflect and try to figure out ways to improve continuously. Just a lot of respect for the fact that he was willing to do that and willing to ask questions. And it’s obviously cool seeing just how effective he’s been.” |
MLB MORNING LINEUP PODCAST |
PCA DEFYING LOGIC WITH EXTREME HOMERS |
Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong hammered an extremely elevated fastball from Pirates lefty Andrew Heaney for a home run in Thursday’s win. At 3.90 feet above the plate, it was the highest pitch hit for a homer by the Cubs this season and tied for the ninth-highest in MLB this year. Go figure, Crow-Armstrong also boasts the lowest pitch hit for a homer this season in the Majors. On May 2 in Milwaukee, he launched a home run on a breaking ball just 0.86 feet off the ground from Joel Payamps. Counsell was asked if he could explain Crow-Armstrong’s ability to do damage on pitches that far out of the strike zone. “Yeah, I don’t understand it,” said Counsell, eliciting some laughter. “I think that’s what you’re hearing from other players, right? … You work so hard to stay in the zone, stay in the zone, stay in the zone, and get rewarded for that. And then you see a player not staying in the zone and doing what he’s doing. So, it’s interesting. And it’s fun to watch.” Per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, Crow-Armstrong became the first player in the Statcast Era (since 2015) to have home runs on a pitch at least 3.90 feet and less than 0.90 feet off the ground in the same season. |
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Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd recorded his sixth pickoff this year in Saturday’s win over the Pirates. Which pitcher was the last to have at least six pickoffs in a season for the North Siders? A) Kyle Hendricks B) Mitch Williams C) Kerry Wood D) Ted Lilly |
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BUSCH BOBBLEHEAD ARRIVING SOON |
• Shota Imanaga makes 2nd rehab start, Cubs return on horizon. Read more >> • Boyd uses “ridiculous’ pickoff move to his advantage in Saturday's win. Read more >>
• Cade Horton hopes to lock horns with Paul Skenes “for a lot of years.” Read more >>
• No. 9 prospect Jaxon Wiggins leads no-no for Double-A Knoxville. Read more >> |
“He’s just a really good dude. And he’s experienced so much in this game and had so much success. I think there’s a lot of guys that look up to what he’s accomplished. So, we’re all behind him no matter what, just because of who he is and how he carries himself in the clubhouse on a daily basis.” -- Happ, on Pressly |
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A) Kyle Hendricks Hendricks picked off seven runners during the 2017 season, tying Wood (2001) and Williams (1989) for the third-most on record in a season for a Cubs pitcher. The record of nine belongs to Charlie Smith (1913), but there has been a pair of Chicago pitchers (Larry Cheney in 1913 and Zip Zabel in 1914) to notch eight in a single campaign. |
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