This one might not have been drunk. But it definitely was tipsy.

After Steele recovered from his third-inning blues, he pitched three more shutout innings. Luke Little and Porter Hodge got it to the ninth, passing their auditions as the new setup combination.

Happ’s homer in the eighth, his second late-inning, go-ahead shot in three games, gave the Cubs the lead. Counsell inserted human pin cushion Héctor Neris back into the closer’s role and watched him seal the deal in a hairy ninth, stranding the tying runs with two strikeouts.

Steele has gone 16 starts without a win despite stellar pitching. No wonder he let it out.

“The lack of wins is definitely odd, but it’s the nature of the games,” Counsell said.

So how stressful has this season been on Counsell?

“Look, I’m at the same place we’re all in, and (that’s) figuring out ways for this team to perform better,” he said. “I’m not sure how me stressing out about it is going to help that.”

When it was explained that he was brought in as the “missing piece” of the puzzle so it would be normal to stress out over the Cubs’ woeful first half, Counsell shot down the narrative.

“I don’t stress out about that,” he said. “Again, because I don’t think that’s going to help. When you don’t think you’re helping to find solutions, I don’t know if it’s stressful, but that’s what keeps you up.”

So despite pleas from some jittery fans to detonate over the recent goings-on, Counsell is not going to change. He doesn’t feel it makes sense to try to be something you’re not, so what you see is what you’re going to get.

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