The Short Porch is thinking about the cycle

It’s been an exciting few days of Cubs baseball at the corner of Clark and Addison. Last night the Cubs walked off the Reds in the bottom of the tenth inning for their second walkoff win in a row. Tuesday night Michael Conforto hit the first walk-off home run of his career and the first two-out, two-strike walk-off home run at Wrigley Field since the David Bote Ultimate Grand Slam in 2018. However, today I want to focus on something other than walk-offs, specifically, should we reconsider the cycle in an era where most of us would agree that being on base matters more than getting there via a single.

On Saturday, Ian Happ really powered the Cubs to victory en route to wait I propose should be considered a new type of cycle. First, he hit this monster home run [VIDEO].

That ball was absolutely demolished, hit 110.6 miles per hour off the bat and traveling 399 feet into the wind. It certainly gave the Diamondbacks pause the next time Happ ambled to the plate in the bottom of the third with runners at second and third. The D-backs intentionally walked Happ, much to the chagrin of the Wrigley faithful.

It didn’t seem that consequential at the time, but then in the sixth inning Happ hit a double down the right field line. He capped off quite the offensive day during his last at bat in the bottom of the eighth, scorching this triple to right center [VIDEO].

And now, dear Cubs fans, we have a bit of a conundrum. Ian Happ finished a single short of the cycle with an intentional walk. For all intents and purposes according to on base percentage, he did the thing. He had four plate appearances and got to each base in turn during all of them. He hit his way to the hardest parts of a cycle, and honestly looked so good doing it that the Diamondbacks just ceded first base to him rather than let him do more damage.