Happ glad stats say he should be getting better results at plate
Leadoff man Ian Happ is one of many Cubs struggling at the plate, with a .160 batting average heading into Wednesday's action.
Still, he's encouraged by his numbers, specifically the .323 on-base percentage. His hard-hit percentage, according to baseball-reference.com, is very similar (48.5) to last year (49.3) when he carried the Cubs offense for the first half of the shortened season.
"Baseball's a hard game, you've got to stay really locked in with the process," Happ said. "Expected wOBA, xwOBA, all of the good stuff looks really good. All the metrics, fly ball rates, walk rates, hard-hit percentage, barrel percentage - all that stuff looks very good.
"So you've got trust the process and trust the baseball gods. It's a long season. They're going to be good to me at some point,."
Happ talked about how xwOBA is supposed to measure expected results based on walks, strikeouts and quality of contact. Last year, his xwOBA was very similar and his current number is third-best on the team after Willson Contreras and David Bote.
"The hardest part is to not panic, to not change what you're doing from a mental or physical standpoint," Happ said. "It's really easy when you're not getting results to think that it's something with your swing or pitch selection and try to do too much.
"I think it's something I've done a good job of is continuing to be disciplined in the zone, getting on base. The fact that my on-base percentage is over .300 and getting on base for the guys behind me is kind of a testament to sticking with the process and not getting out of the plan. At some point, the wind here will blow out and it will blow some balls in the right direction."
Twitter: @McGrawDHBulls