Chicago Cubs' Hendricks does something 'not easy to do'

Whenever a pitcher tosses a gem like the Chicago Cubs' Kyle Hendricks' complete-game shutout on 81 pitches Friday, the question invariably arises: Why can't everybody do that?

Probably because it's not that easy.

Hendricks needed 2 hours, 28 minutes to blank the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0. Of his 81 pitches, 63 were strikes.

"It's not easy to do that," manager Joe Maddon said Saturday. "It would be done a lot more often. It was the perfect pitching storm, where he was dotting up so well and they were aggressive.

"In order for starting pitchers to pitch more deeply into the game successfully, for me, you have to get a lot of early-count outs, which normally means you're going to be spotting up your fastball. And if you're doing that, guys want to swing at fastballs."

Hendricks got five outs on first pitches and nine on second pitches.

"Of course everybody likes hitting a fastball, but if it's thrown in the right spot, you get quick outs," Maddon said. "That's what he did, he got quick outs.

"That's what permits that. But not everybody can do what he can do with the fastball to both sides of the plate. Not everybody's got that changeup with that deception. The curveball was highly pertinent as that game was in progress. Not easy to do. Not many people can do what he did yesterday."

What's in a name?

Kyle Hendricks achieved "a Maddux" on Friday, that is, a complete-game shutout requiring fewer than 100 pitches.

Would Joe Maddon like "the Maddux" to be an official thing?

"I love it," he said. "I love that kind of stuff, as you would imagine. It's an extension of the save in some ways. I've already deemed the Karkovice (for former White Sox catcher Ron Karkovice). Somebody gets Karkoviced when they get jammed and the popup is caught by the pitcher coming in.

"There's all these Chicago references going on: the save (former Chicago baseball writer Jerome Holtzman made the save official), the Maddux and being Karkoviced, with all my sincere apologies to Mr. Karkovice."

Good start for Montgomery:

Left-hander Mike Montgomery pitched 6 innings for Class AAA Iowa on Friday in a rehab start. He gave up 1 hit and 1 run while retiring 18 of the last 19 batters he faced.

Montgomery has been on the injured list since April 6 with a lat strain. There's no timetable for activating him.

"I haven't talked to Theo (team president Epstein) about it yet, but I am aware that he threw really well last night, Joe Maddon said. "It sounds like he's checked all the boxes.

"It's always about the next day and making sure everything is cool. Then we'll make our moves after that. It was very encouraging to hear what he did."

This and that:

Taylor Davis became the first Cub to hit a grand slam as his first career homer since pitcher Kevin Tapani in 1998. He's the first Cubs position player to have a grand slam as his first homer since Champ Summers in 1975. Davis was the first Cub to have a grand slam be his first Cubs homer since Rene Rivera in 2017. … Second baseman Daniel Descalso left Saturday's game in the fourth inning with left-ankle soreness, suffered while running the bases in the first.