In past seasons, Ian Happ may not have executed the diving and sliding plays he made Thursday with the same conviction.
“Just over the course of the year, as you get more and more of those, you get more comfortable with the read off the bat,” he said, “where you know you can give yourself a chance, and you’re making decisions based on game situation, based on, ‘OK, I can go after this ball and dive or slide, I know I can come up the last second, I know I can keep it in front of me and it’s not going to turn into a double.