Ian Happ was benched for a second straight game Sunday as the Chicago Cubs fell 8-5 to the Houston Astros, the eighth loss in a row; Happ had one hit in his last 24 at-bats and his batting average had dipped to.214.
Manager Craig Counsell told Happ on Saturday “not to even pick up a bat,” and after two days off Counsell said, “He’ll be back in there [Monday in Pittsburgh],” adding, “I thought two days was best for Ian right here.” Happ called the break “productive,” saying, “You don’t get any days to work without playing, so having a couple days to work on the swing is nice,” and, “Sometimes it’s good to just watch nine innings and have a reset.”
The numbers behind the move are stark. Happ had 10 home runs before the end of May and in recent weeks settled into the cleanup spot, but he is scuffling when it matters most: through 66 plate appearances with runners in scoring position he was slashing.151/.318/.283 and striking out nearly 40% of the time in those situations. Overall, his strikeout rate had jumped to 33% two months into the season, and his 29.5% whiff rate on fastballs was his highest since 2020. He was also whiffing on breaking pitches at a 43.5% clip—the highest since 2017.
Those metrics sit against Happ’s longer-term history: from 2017 to 2021 he struck out 30.8% of the time, while over the last four seasons his strikeout rate had dropped to 23.4%. The recent reversal helps explain Counsell’s decision to step in. “There wasn’t much today,” Counsell said after Sunday’s defeat, and later: “We didn’t create scoring opportunities, and that’s first. We gotta create scoring opportunities.”
Context deepens the scrutiny. Happ is in the final season of a three-year, $61 million contract, and he has watched teammates Pete Crow-Armstrong and Nico Hoerner earn nine-figure deals this year. The Cubs have been making lineup changes and benching struggling players, yet the moves have not stopped the slide: by Monday afternoon in Pittsburgh the Cubs had lost nine games in a row. Counsell bluntly summed up the offense: “Offensively, we are equipped to be way more consistent than this and way better than this…We gotta swing the bats better, we gotta pitch better, we need more guys contributing to good stuff.”
The friction is clear. Happ insists the issue isn’t confidence: “No. You’re so focused on the process and what you’re going through,” and, “[It’s] really to focus on your process and your work and what you’re trying to accomplish.” He also tried to diagnose the problem himself: “I think there’s probably more factors, but if I had to venture a guess, it’s a little bit timing stuff and swinging through more fastballs than I have the past handful of years,” and, “When you’re not putting pitches in play early, you end up hitting with more two-strike counts and that just leads to more strikeouts.” Yet the results undercut the self-assessment—through 48 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, Seiya Suzuki was slashing.122/.229/.220 and striking out over 41% of the time, leaving the middle of the order both expected and failing to produce.
Happ returned to the lineup Monday in Pittsburgh and went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout as the Cubs dropped their ninth straight game. “That’s the hard part,” Happ said of the slump, but he pushed back on dwelling: “It’s a team sport, so everybody’s going through it together and feeling the frustration and bringing that positive attitude every day, and you’re understanding that this thing isn’t gonna last. We’re gonna win a series and get rolling.”
The evidence suggests the reset Counsell ordered is a short one: if Happ cannot reduce swings-and-misses and start putting more pitches into play, the cleanup job he has recently occupied will remain at odds with expectations. Counsell’s solution for now is simple: more work and a clear lineup spot; for Happ, the test is immediate — translate the time off into contact and the Cubs’ slide into a halt.
