Unlikely Teammate Might Have Saved Veteran Pitcher's Career with Cubs

Ryan Pressly was supposed to be the shutdown closer at the end of the 2025 Chicago Cubs bullpen, but he was demoted from that role after his historically bad appearance against the San Francisco Giants on May 6. The two-time All-Star and World Series champion was down in the dumps and looking for answers the Cubs went to an unlikely teammate for a solution.

Although Pressly had a 2.08 ERA through his first 13 innings of the season you could sense a blowup coming. The veteran reliever wasn't generating any swings and misses, he was consistently allowing hard contact and was walking more batters than he was striking out. Then, in the 10th inning against the Giants at Wrigley Field in early May Pressly was charged with nine runs without recording a single out.

The Cubs and Pressly knew they could no longer have things continue as they were. He had good numbers, but the way he was pitching obviously wasn't sustainable for success so they needed to figure out what was going wrong with Pressly.

The team eventually turned to the position players and the most senior member of the Cubs, Ian Happ, was the teammate who helped Pressly turn his 2025 season around.

Via MLB.com.

“There’s definitely times where guys will ask, ‘If I throw this pitch in this situation, or this pitch off that pitch, what do you think?’” Happ said. “He wanted kind of like, ‘What would you be looking for against me? How would you game plan for me?’”

“There’s a lot of credit that goes around for that,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “But it’s really just, let’s try to uncover everything we can do to help a teammate. There might have been six ideas that didn’t work, right? But you’re just trying to do everything you can do to maybe get a different way to think about a problem.”

“We were seeing kind of a pattern that I was falling into,” Pressly said. “With the pitch repertoire that I have, we shouldn’t be doing that necessarily. We’ve got to mix it in a little bit more and keep guys off-balance.”

Since the awful appearance against the Giants Pressly has not allowed a run in 15 innings pitched. The right-hander has struck out 14 batters versus three walks and has produced a 54.8 ground ball rate.

A reminder that in Pressly's first 14 games with the Cubs he only had five strikeouts while allowing eight walks. That was insanely low strikeout production by a reliever let alone a guy who was out there trying to close out games in the ninth inning.

Something had to give and Pressly took Happ's advice, changing his pitch usage, specifically increasing the fastball rate.

Pressly was one of the most reliable relievers in baseball during his time with the Houston Astros. He put up a dominant postseason stretch from 2021-23, helping the Astros win the 2022 World Series, but even Pressly put his pride aside to get help which Happ appreciates.

“It’s really easy to be stubborn and to kind of rely on what you’ve done in the past,” Happ said. “It’s a lot harder to reflect and try to figure out ways to improve continuously. Just a lot of respect for the fact that he was willing to do that and willing to ask questions. And it’s obviously cool seeing just how effective he’s been.”

The Cubs know Pressly has big-game experience and as one of the veteran relievers in the bullpen they're obviously looking for better things from Pressly as the season progresses. It's good to have that experience in a pennant race, but that experience only matters if the player delivers.

For now, it appears as though Pressly has found a lifeline to extend his effectiveness with the help of Happ.