Ian Happ talks Cubs' 9-game losing streak, getting a 2-day mental break

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Connect Roasters coffee enthusiast. Here's a man that probably has five fresh pots a day. On 104.3 The Score. We toast you in happiness.

66.856 - 89.886 Leila Rahimi

And we don't get to say this very often, but live from his hometown, it is Ian Happ. Ian Happ joins us every week here on 104.3 The Score. And he co-hosts the Compound Podcast, which is now part of Odyssey Sports. New episodes drop every Wednesday with the latest discussion on the Cubs and baseball. Download and listen on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Ian, how are you?

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Doing all right. How are you guys?

93.13 - 111.793 Leila Rahimi

We are good. So we don't need to tell you, of course, about what's going on just with the streak you guys are on. Streaks seem to be the name of the game so far this season. What is the mindset? How are you feeling right now just understanding what's ahead of you? You're in Pittsburgh. You've got two more games in this series and you're trying to come off the slide as a team.

112.995 - 140.856 Ian Happ

Yeah. I think it's just getting everybody back to basics and Um, when you're on that kind of a skid, you know, it just feels like a lot of things have gone wrong in the last nine games. So, um, whether that's, you know, not hitting one day or, you know, the, you know, like having a good pitching performance and just not getting the bats going or it feels like every little thing. So, um,

420.05 - 430.504 Leila Rahimi

And, you know, I remember, Ian, us talking to you about the article that Patrick Mooney had written when it came to posting and that Rizzo was part of the influence there.

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And knowing that that's a big part of your game, just knowing that you being in the lineup regularly is the best way to get the best version of you, I think that the timing of it was pretty interesting in that, you know, here is this break for you, and you talk about the pinch hitting. I do feel like in a situation like that, you as a pinch hit bat –

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and that's not easy, would be a productive bat off the bench. How do you look at that in that point where you're saying to yourself, I may have to pinch hit in this game, get ready to stay ready type of mentality?

460.742 - 476.179 Ian Happ

Yeah. Dan's been there both on the bench, so we were down there hitting and getting ready and kind of knew there was a couple of situations where it might be a good spot for me to hit. I kind of got to a point in the game where

476.159 - 499.821 Ian Happ

I think we were down two um and there was like one spot that might have made sense but it just didn't come up so I was I was down there with my batting gloves on ready to hit but um yeah you you just you stay prepared because as you know as a teammate and as a competitor you're like hey if I can give us a chance to to win a baseball game today you know that's all that matters