Hendricks, Hammel starting Games 3 and 4
NEW YORK - The Cubs will go with Kyle Hendricks as their pitcher for Game 3 of the National League championship series on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.
Hendricks has supplanted Jason Hammel as the third starter. Hammel is the likely starter for Wednesday's fourth game, but manager Joe Maddon did not rule out using Hammel in relief before Wednesday.
It's been a struggle for the Cubs to find consistency after Nos. 1 and 2 starters Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester. Hendricks started Game 2 of the division series against the Cardinals, and he lasted 4⅔ innings, giving up 4 hits and 3 runs.
After Arrieta pitched Game 3 of the NLDS, Hammel started the clinching fourth game, but he was around for just 3 innings, as he allowed 3 hits and 2 runs.
As far as Hendricks goes, Maddon said the young pitcher needs to be around the plate to get close calls from the umpire.
"He needs to get strikes," Maddon said. "He needs to be able to get called strikes from an umpire. He's not going to get a lot of swing and misses early in the count, so he needs, I don't want to say cooperation. He just needs to be on those edges to the point where he gets called strikes, and then after that the stuff plays bigger because the deception involved."
Settling in at short:
Javier Baez made a couple of nice defensive plays Saturday night as he started at shortstop in place of the injured Addison Russell.
"The play up the middle, the popup down the left-field line, he looked really comfortable to me," Maddon said. "Talking to him before the game, I thought he was definitely into the flow better than he was that day coming off the bench. He knows he's going to play right now, so I think there's a different method for him to get ready that's more comfortable to him. His at-bats were good. I just thought he had a nice day yesterday."
It's his kind of town:
During Joe Maddon's pregame session Sunday with the entire media, a reporter asked him about his experience with Chicago in his first year as Cubs manager.
"The people have been very, very open and kind and embracing," Maddon said. "They really are Cubs fans. I live downtown and I walk around a lot and get in a lot of conversations. And you heard in the beginning a lot about how parents and grandparents never saw a World Series, and then it would always be followed with 'no pressure', and I always enjoyed that conversation.
"I assured them absolutely there is none. I don't feel that, but hopefully for you we'll be able to do this at some point. But that's been the primary conversation, bringing up the past, the fact that we had not won the World Series in a long time."
Just skip it:
The Cubs opted not to take batting practice before Sunday's game. Most of their on-field batting-practice sessions since the middle of August have been optional, and they've skipped batting practice altogether on many days. Cold temperatures and gusty winds at Citi Field Sunday no doubt contributed to the Cubs skipping batting practice.