Remember When Jason Heyward Was About To Have The Best Year Of His Career? The Past Two Months Have Been Ugly

Every Cubs fan watching during August knew that Jason Heyward was slumping, but I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until Thursday night's game when he struck out with the bases loaded to end the fifth inning against the Brewers.

The strikeout brought Heyward's hitless streak to 31 at-bats, which he finally snapped with a single to center field his next time up.

After going 1-for-5 on Thursday, Heyward now has a slash line of .249/.335/.419, bringing him back to almost the same production he had the past two years with the Cubs.

Entering 2019, you'd take Heyward's numbers, especially with the juiced ball bringing his home run total to 18 so far this season. However, less than two months ago, Heyward wasn't just on pace to have his best offensive season with the Cubs, he was going to be on track to have the best year of his career.

His current slump stretches back to July 20. Starting that day Heyward had a .836 OPS, with a slash line of .278/.361/.475. Really damn good.

However, since then Heyward has been atrocious.

His OPS has dropped 84 points during his last 38 games.

So, what the hell happened after it looked like Heyward had finally figured things out at the plate? Well, for starters, he was moved to the leadoff spot on a permanent basis in August and that's when the regression really started to hit Heyward.

Did he change his approach moving to the leadoff spot? Did he get too much inside his own head? One thing noticeably changed at the plate for Heyward.

From July 20 to Sept. 5, Heyward pulled the ball 47.1% of the time, leading to a 48.6% ground ball rate. You know, lots of 4-3 putouts that Cubs fans have seen a lot from Heyward since 2016. Yet, when Heyward was crushing the ball in April, June and most of July, he was going the other way, getting a lot of opposite field hits and even slugging to left field.

In August, Heyward pulled the ball 52.1% of the time in 105 plate appearances. Half of the time Heyward put a ball in play last month it was a ground ball. He finished August with a .587 OPS, his lowest of 2019. In April, Heyward had a .992 OPS and only pulled the ball 30.4% and in June, when he had a .968 OPS, he posted a 44.7% pull rate.

It's pretty simple, hit the ball the other way, but that pretty much seems to be Heyward's big problem right now. He's just not going with the pitches like he was when he was getting good results.

The good news is that Heyward won't be leading off much, if it all, for the rest of the season with the return of Ben Zobrist. So, we'll see if the issue really was just him being the leadoff hitter, or if this is just who he is on offense.