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The Cubs have been struggling of late, notably on offense, so manager Joe Maddon got a little crazy on Tuesday night against the Mets.

First, on an afternoon radio show on ESPN Chicago, Anthony Rizzo said that after weeks of him asking to do so, he was batting leadoff. As if that wasn't enough to draw the raised eyebrows, power-starved Jason Heyward was hitting cleanup. 

Rizzo makes more sense in the leadoff spot than many would like to acknowledge. He works deep counts a lot and has a very good eye. He came into Tuesday with a .390 on-base percentage and had walked 41 times compared to just 31 strikeouts. He also led the majors with 12 hit by pitches.

What do you want out of a leadoff man? Those things I just said Rizzo can do. 

Of course, he can do this, too:

Statcast pegged that as a 462-foot shot. 

Things would get pretty weird with this already-weird lineup in the second inning. Jon Lester, a career .066 hitter heading into the game, tagged a line-drive single to left field. Albert Almora walked to load the bases for Rizzo. Rizzo looked like a true leadoff man in working the count full and then taking a very close ball four to walk in a run.

And then Ian Happ did his thing: 

Later, Heyward would hit a two-run shot. He's definitely been better this season, but he's now hitting .263/.320/.409, hardly an imposing line from the cleanup spot -- admittedly an old-school moniker, but still one that many hold near and dear to their hearts. 

Back to Happ, as he provided another oddity. In addition to that grand slam, he struck out four times. He joins Derek Norris, Mark Teixeira, Cory Snyder and Reggie Jackson (twice) as the only players in history to have a grand slam and four strikeouts in five at-bats (baseball-reference.com play index link) during a game. 

In all, the Cubs would score 14 runs on 15 hits, which included three doubles and five homers (Kris Bryant and Javier Baez were the other two). 

The only logical conclusion is to stick with the same lineup on Wednesday, right?