Takeaways from the Chicago Cubs’ exhausting week as they begin a crucial nine-game trip out West.
Los Angeles Angels starter Kyle Hendricks is scheduled to face his former Cubs team Sunday in the finale of the three-game series in Anaheim, Calif.
And that’s a good thing.
Baseball is entertainment, and seeing Hendricks face the Cubs in a pennant race will be about as good as it gets, especially with the Cubs offense in a second-half slump.
The Cubs will get a chance to catch up with Hendricks, one of the last remaining active players left from the 2016 World Series champions along with Kyle Schwarber, Javier Báez, Willson Contreras, Aroldis Chapman and the injured Kris Bryant.
“He’s one of those people, I’m lucky to have had a year with Kyle Hendricks,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He’s a really good player that’s had a great career, and especially for this franchise, and it’s like, ‘How did he do that?’ To get a window into that for a year of how he did it was a lot of fun.
“He was a master of controlling the game. … That was probably the thing I was amazed about most, and how his teammate recognized that and also sought him out for that. He was elite at that.”
Hendricks signed a one-year, $2.5 million deal to return to his California home and pitch for the Angels. He’s 6-8 with a 4.93 ERA in 24 starts, and his 1.2 WAR is his highest since the shortened 2020 season with the Cubs (2.0 in 12 starts).
“Of course, I would have loved an opportunity in Chicago,” he said upon signing with the Angels. “But I’m so excited for where that organization is at. They’re set up so good with young pitchers, and it just made sense for both sides to move on.”
Javier Assad was recalled from Triple-A Iowa to start Friday, while the Cubs placed struggling reliever Ryan Brasier on the 15-day IL with a left groin strain. Cade Horton and Jameson Taillon will start the final two games of the series.
The Cubs now need to focus on the wild-card race, and fortunately it’s not that difficult to follow the competition. There just aren’t that many teams involved. Remember, if they finish as the No. 1 wild-card team, they’ll play the No. 3 seed in a best-of-three series at Wrigley Field. Otherwise they’ll play on the road.
Here’s the Cubs record against the four other teams in the NL wild-card race: 3-3 vs. the San Diego Padres, 4-3 vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-4 vs. the Cincinnati Reds and 1-2 vs. the New York Mets.
Ryne Sandberg’s celebration of life Friday at Old St. Patrick’s Church was a beautiful tribute to the late Cubs star, with plenty of stories and laughs. His grandchildren talking about their “Pappi,” as they called him, was especially touching.
Broadcaster Bob Costas said during his eulogy that Sandberg made it a point to let people know during his memorial that he wanted to thank not only his teammates and friends, “but also the people who work at the ballpark, and all the fans who cheered him, shared their memories with him, wrote to him and more recently prayed for him.”
The Mass was televised live on Marquee Sports Network and all the local TV stations and shown on the video screen at Gallagher Way.
Numbers don’t always tell the story but help create the narratives, whether good or bad.
The Cubs’ .665 OPS in the second half is second-worst in the majors, while they’re 28th in batting average at .228. That’s a lethal combination for a team that insists things are fine, as Counsell reminds the media almost daily.
Kyle Tucker’s .556 OPS in the second half is 10th-worst in the majors. Coincidentally, the worst OPS in that span is .405, by the Astros’ Cam Smith, the Cubs’ top draft pick in 2024 who was sent to Houston in the Tucker trade.
The Cubs have three others in the bottom 19 of OPS in the second half: Seiya Suzuki (15th-worst at .582), Michael Busch (17th-worst at .588) and Dansby Swanson (19th-worst at .598). Swanson has been going so badly that Counsell pinch-hit Owen Caissie for him in Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. Swanson is in Year 3 of a seven-year, $177 million deal.
President Jed Hoyer on Monday defended Counsell’s lineup decisions, which have come under fire for leaving hot-hitting Matt Shaw batting eighth or ninth.
Hoyer said Bill James taught him 25 years ago “hit your best players most often,” meaning at the top of the lineup. He noted the Cubs have “a lot of analytics and projection systems” to aid in their lineup constructions.
While not mentioning Shaw specifically, Hoyer said: “The idea that you know ‘Hey, this guy is hitting well and batting eighth, (so) I’m now going to bat him second.’ … You don’t really know if that guy is going to start a cold streak or not, right?”
Counsell drew more criticism Thursday for sitting Shaw, who entered the day with a 1.018 OPS since the All-Star break, third in the majors behind the Atlanta Braves’ Michael Harris II (1.144) and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani (1.102).
Hoyer also defended bringing Caissie up from Triple-A Iowa and not giving him a regular chance to start, except when Tucker had his “mental reset.”
“When we brought him up, the intention was not to play him every day,” Hoyer said. “We said that at the time, like we were sort of lacking a power-hitting left-handed bat on the bench. We knew there were certain starts we could get him. When we brought him up, it wasn’t like ‘Now we’re going to play him every single day.’ That was part of the discussion, and I think that’s for a good reason because we have really good players that play his position.”
