Their postseason hopes hanging by a thread, the Cubs sent out Hendricks to oppose rookie sensation Paul Skenes — like racing a tired, old mule against a Thoroughbred.
Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks takes the ‘L’ in must-win game against Pirates. Is it goodnight and farewell?
On Sept. 3, 2014, Cubs rookie Kyle Hendricks took the mound at Wrigley Field and beat the Brewers. It was only career start No. 10 for the 24-year-old righthander, and already he was 6-1 with a 2.02 ERA that was taking him from organizational question mark to a firm part of the team’s plans.
The Cubs were a last-place team that year, but they would win nine times in Hendricks’ final 10 starts and leave those watching with the impression that maybe, just maybe, they’d taken the first steps in a very promising direction.
Ah, well, enough about back then.
Ten years later to the night, the Cubs turned to Hendricks for career start No. 266. Against the Pirates at Wrigley, the Cubs needed to win to maintain any honest chance of catching and passing the Mets and Braves for the National League’s third wild-card spot.
Their postseason hopes hanging by a thread — and with Justin Steele unable to make his scheduled start — the Cubs sent out Hendricks to oppose rookie sensation Paul Skenes. Only now, that’s like running a tired, old mule against a Thoroughbred.
Pirates 5, Cubs 0. Cubs cooked. Cubs finished. Cubs over-and-out.
Hendricks, now 34, is hanging by a thread, too. In the final year of his contract, he might pitch a few more times for the Cubs. Or he might not. He arguably shouldn’t be starting games anymore, with the season on the line, considering how far beyond his prime he appears to be. He left the game after five innings with the Cubs trailing 2-0 — about as good as he gets anymore — but the record is 3-11 and the ERA 6.60 and, sorry, but “cooked,” “finished” and “over-and-out” are coming to mind again.
This was the third time this season Skenes and Hendricks have started the same game, but the oddity of the matchup remained inescapable.
On one side, a 22-year-old who was drafted No. 1 overall in 2023, was the NL’s All-Star starter as a rookie, heads the list of the sport’s rising superstars and, of course, rolls out of bed throwing 100 mph.
No starter in the league throws harder than Skenes — and no starter throws slower than Hendricks, whose average four-seam fastball, a tick under 88 mph, ranks at the very bottom.
The previous time the two pitchers went head-to-head was last week in Pittsburgh. Hendricks got blasted for six runs and didn’t make it out of the second inning. The Pirates wound up blowing a 10-3 lead, to no fault of Skenes.
“It’s just one of those days where it’s baseball,” Hendricks said of his performance. “It happens.”
But that sort of thing didn’t happen to Hendricks for a lot of years. Few Cubs pitchers have been steadier over their careers than the last remaining player for the 2016 World Series team. But all things must end, and Hendricks’ fall — and that of this Cubs team — has been as easy to see coming as one of his lukewarm heaters that leaks back over the heart of the plate.
