Ian Happ's homer sets the tone for the Cubs in a playoff victory against the Brewers

CHICAGO (AP) — With one big swing, Ian Happ sent a charge through an electric crowd of 41,770 at Wrigley Field.

After a rough start to the playoffs, it was a pretty sweet moment for the longest-tenured player with the Chicago Cubs.

Happ connected for a three-run homer in the first inning on Thursday night, sending Chicago to a 6-0 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers that pushed their NL Division Series to a decisive Game 5.

“I’m just so happy for Ian,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “I think it was great for Ian to have the playoff moment that he deserved. It was a huge swing.”

Nico Hoerner singled and Kyle Tucker walked ahead of Happ's two-out drive to right on a 1-1 fastball from Freddy Peralta. Chicago became the first team in major league history with a first-inning homer in four straight games during one postseason.

The switch-hitting Happ also connected against Peralta in Game 1, but he is 2 for 32 with 14 strikeouts against the right-hander in the regular season.

“I’ve had a ton of at-bats against him,” Happ said. “He’s had my number quite a bit. But I got him in Milwaukee on a fastball so I knew he was going to go changeup, changeup to start the at-bat and it was probably going to be a lot more soft stuff. I was able to get a fastball in that at-bat to hit.”

Happ was selected by Chicago with the No. 9 pick in the 2015 amateur draft out of the University of Cincinnati. He made his big league debut in 2017, batting .253 with 24 homers and 68 RBIs for a Cubs team that won the NL Central and made it to the NL Championship Series.

He played in his 1,000th game with the team on April 5, but struggled for much of the year. He hit .243 with 23 homers and 79 RBIs in 150 games.

“He's been around for a while, and he's kind of the leader of this group,” teammate Michael Busch said. “Just the way he goes about his business each and every day. No matter if it's a spring training game, postseason game, he's always going to give you a good at-bat, and he had quite a few of them tonight."

Happ went 2 for 21 with 11 strikeouts in Chicago’s first six postseason games this year. After going deep in the first, he flied out to the warning track in the third and again in the seventh.

“It felt great,” Happ said of the first-inning homer. “The guys have been carrying me all postseason so to contribute in that moment and give us the lead was awesome for me. It was a really cool moment at Wrigley.”