if Zo argues, I really have to pay attention, especially on a Sunday.”

Practice makes perfect?

By now, most Cubs fans know that Maddon believes batting practice is “the most ridiculously overrated part of what we do every day.”

So the Cubs have taken just a handful of mandatory on-field batting practices in recent weeks. Where and when did this mentality take root with Maddon? He says it was in the minor leagues.

“I was hitting coach,” he said of his days in the Angels’ system. “There’s some definite moments, i.e., Jack Howell, whenever he got sent down to Triple-A, the middle ’80s. I was down with him in Tucson, and he was struggling. Jackie couldn’t even catch up to an 85-mile-an-hour fastball at that time. He could hit anybody’s fastball, anybody’s fastball, prior to that.

“So he goes down to Tucson, and I’m throwing to him. The first five or 10 minutes, he’s killing it. I wanted to quit. He wants some more. So he hits another 20 minutes. By the time we get to 30 minutes, he was awful. You hit right through feel.

“Feel is a big part of what I think we do in this game. I think there’s a point of diminishing returns in terms of physical activity, and it subtracts feel from what you’re doing. That was probably the first example in my mind’s eye of what’s too much.”

The Cubs cut back on batting practice significantly last August. In September-October regular-season games, they were 23-9 and well on their way to the National League championship series.

That was another old lesson put to use by Maddon.

“The other part was, with the Angels, as a young coach in the big leagues, we hit for an hour every day,” he said. “And we were terrible in September. I really thought that it’s not only just the players, it’s the coaches, it’s the training staff, it’s everybody. Everybody’s fatigued by having to be there too early to do nothing. Literally, to do nothing except to be there and pretend you’re doing something.

“For me, I thought, ‘Let’s condense the work day, work smart as opposed to just work for the sake of working.’ I thought that things would become better.”

Good luck to him:

It doesn’t sound impressive, but right fielder Jason Heyward has his batting average up to .236 heading into the road trip to Milwaukee, San Francisco and St. Louis.

After the first game of the just-concluded homestand, Heyward’s average stood at .207.

A wrist injury, suffered by Heyward earlier in the season, didn’t help. He is still without a home run, and his slugging percentage stands at .276.

Joe Maddon also points out Heyward has hit into some bad luck. In April, Heyward’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was at .288. The league average usually hovers around .300. A lower-than-average BABIP often suggests a hitter is enduring bad luck, such as line drives being hit right at fielders.

Maddon says he feels Heyward’s luck will change.

“It’s got to,” he said. “That one week we played in St. Louis and Cincinnati, he must have had eight really well-struck line drives caught. It’s going to come back to him. It will shift back in his favor because he doesn’t cave, he doesn’t give in, he’s not lost confidence, he understands.

“Look at his on-base (.345) is over 100 points higher than his batting average … The rest of the stuff, the power’s going to come, the gappers are going to come.”

Ill winds blowing:

If the Cubs sounded Sunday like they were glad to be heading out on the road, maybe it had something to do with the wind at Wrigley Field.

In 20 games at Wrigley, the wind has blown in 16 times. It has blown out only twice, and crosswinds have prevailed twice.

• Follow Bruce’s reports on Twitter@BruceMiles2112.