Baseball is a team game filled with personal milestones. In Saturday’s 7-1 win over the Padres, Ian Happ showcased some of both. Making his 1,000th career appearance for the Cubs, something only 31 other players in franchise history have done, Happ reached base twice and made a spectacular diving catch in the seventh inning that kept San Diego from generating a rally.
Later in the seventh inning, the Padres strung together three consecutive singles for their lone run of the game, but without Happ’s catch for the first out, the result of that inning is likely much different.
“Game situation, being able to get that first out of the inning and let Nate [Pearson] kind of ease into that inning, so it was a good one,” Happ said.
Any catch like that is a tough one to make, but especially so at Wrigley, where the foul lines practically touch the outfield corner walls in left and right field. There is no margin for error when racing over to make a catch — a spectacular play can also become a spectacular injury.
Happ has the advantage of having played left field consistently for many years now, and he’s become good enough at it to have earned Gold Glove awards for the last three seasons in a row.
“Just knowing the way the ball moves, knowing how it’s going to come off the bat, and then where that warning track and where that wall is, all those things definitely helped a lot,” Happ said.
Of the 32 Cubs players who have reached the 1,000 game milestone, only 20 others have done it all while wearing a Cubs uniform. Even more, Happ is just the third — Mark Grace and Shawon Dunston are the others — to be drafted by the Cubs and play at least that many games for the team. Happ said there were times he wasn’t sure whether he would get to this point, like when he started the 2019 season in Triple-A and when the 2020 season was cut short by Covid-19.
“The big significance for me is 1,000 games with the same team,” Craig Counsell said. “That’s what makes it rare and definitely worth talking about. That, in this era of baseball, is not happening, just not happening. That speaks a lot about how Ian’s gone about it. It’s hard to do. It’s hard, it’s rare, and there’s a reason it’s rare.”
Being able to play in that many games is a testament to Happ’s work ethic, and a product of his work before and after games to keep himself healthy. He said he is especially proud of having been able to play in at least 150 games in each of the last three seasons.
“Those are the things that mean a lot to me, being available every day for this group,” Happ said.
That’s a part of being a baseball player that most people never see, but it makes the difference between a guy who is on the field as much as Happ is and those who never see the milestone he reached on Saturday.
“Baseball, it doesn’t look like a very physical sport a lot of times,” Counsell said, “and so it doesn’t look like an athletic, demanding sport on your body. The daily nature of it is demanding. And it means generally you’re trying a lot of times to prevent things from starting because once they start happening, you can’t put them back in the box.
“That’s what the daily routines for these guys try to prevent, is the onset of something, and Ian’s as good at it as anybody, and I think his availability tells you that.”
His availability does not go unnoticed by his teammates, who all signed a jersey that was waiting for him at his locker.
Happ has been in the leadoff spot all season thus far, and when he stepped into the box in the first inning Saturday, fans gave him a standing ovation. He said it was a challenge not to get emotional in that moment, but he took a second to tip his helmet to fans. A high and tight fastball from Padres starter Nick Pivetta brought him back to reality momentarily before he jumpstarted the Cubs offense with a leadoff double.
In all, Cubs bats lit up the San Diego pitchers, driving Pivetta from the game after just three innings and scoring against two of the three Padres relievers. Dansby Swanson, Carson Kelly, and Nico Hoerner all had multiple hits, and Swanson and Kelly both homered.
Not to be overshadowed, Matthew Boyd made his first start at Wrigley Field and tossed six scoreless innings against a potent Padres offense that started the season on a seven-game winning streak. Boyd grew up in Seattle as a Mariners fan, but he said because of his grandfather’s diehard Cubs fandom, this was an especially poignant day for him. Boyd’s grandfather died in 2019, five years into Boyd’s career, and as much as he enjoyed talking to his grandson about Boyd’s performances, the conversation almost always steered back to the Cubs
“We’d talk always after my starts. I’d call him on the way home, and he would, as soon as I was getting through my start, he would always let me know how the Cubs [were doing],” Boyd said. “He would always want to get to the important stuff, right?”
There were Cubs pennants besides the Mariners ones in Boyd’s room growing up, he said, and even though he made an appearance on the mound at Wrigley during his rookie season in 2015, being the starter in a Cubs uniform made it an even more special experience.
In all, a more special day than usual for an early April Saturday at Wrigley Field. After some of the frustrations of the opening games of the season, when they lost both games against the Dodgers in Tokyo and then suffered a bullpen-induced loss against the Diamondbacks during the domestic opening series, the Cubs are on a five-game roll and sitting on top of the National League Central.
There is a very long way to go, but there is early-season optimism in Wrigleyville, and decisive wins against a good team like the Padres lend credence to those good vibes.
“That’s what it’s going to take in order to play consistent, good ball,” Swanson said of Saturday’s all-around team performance. “It’s nice to flow together as a group, whether it’s on the mound, or whether it’s in the batter’s box, or whether it’s playing defense, on the bases, we’ve done everything really well.”
