(670 The Score) On May 6, Cubs reliever Ryan Pressly endured the worst outing of his 13-year MLB career. He allowed nine runs, eight earned, without recording an out during the 10th inning of the Cubs' 14-5 loss to the Giants at Wrigley Field.
Pressly has pitched 15 innings since then and hasn't surrendered an earned run in that time. He has become one of the Cubs’ most reliable options out of the bullpen. Pressly has credited outfielder Ian Happ for helping him turn it around after that blow-up performance.
Pressly turned to Happ, who was on the injured list with an oblique ailment at the time, and sought his advice on how to improve.
“Just really cool for a veteran who’s been in the league and had so much success as Press has to be continuing to try to get better,” Happ said on the Rahimi & Harris Show on Tuesday. “And to have an understanding of, ‘Hey, something isn’t right. I don’t feel my pitch mix is working as it should.’ So, when I was on the IL, he asked me to go through a report and let him know what I would be looking for, what I would be trying to hit and how his pitches would play to me. I was able to kind of go through, just give him my thoughts on what I was seeing and how i would prepare to face him, what pitches I would try to handle, and I think it just gave him that other-side perspective and let him change up his mix a little bit, try to work on hitting some different spots with some different pitches. Obviously, his stuff has played for a long time and is always going to play. He has done an amazing job for us.
“I think that’s kind of who he is as a person. That’s the reason why he’s been on so many playoff teams and had so much success in the playoffs, in big spots. It’s because he’s willing to do that. He’s willing to look in the mirror and say that isn’t good enough and always want to be better, even at this stage in his career. And it makes everyone around him better. I think that mentality from the veteran-back-end-of-the-bullpen arm, it really bleeds to everybody else. I think it’s really cool for guys to be able to see how hard he’s working on what he’s doing. It would be really easy at this point in his career to be able to say, ‘Well, this is my stuff, and I’m going to do stuff to what I’ve always done. To have that ability to keep adapting, changing and wanting to be better, it’s really impressive and fun to watch.”
Pressly’s ERA spiked to 7.62 following his bad outing in early May. He now has a 3.54 ERA on the season. He has a 0.96 ERA in his 29 appearances this season outside of his meltdown on May 6.
The NL Central-leading Cubs will open a three-game series against the Brewers on Tuesday evening at Wrigley Field. First pitch is set for 7:05 p.m. CT. Pregame coverage will start at 6:30 p.m. on 670 The Score.