Hendricks barely misses shutout
One of the loudest cheers of the day at Wrigley Field happened at the start of the ninth inning when pitcher Kyle Hendricks stepped out of the dugout.
The sellout crowd was excited to see if Hendricks could finish off a complete-game shutout of Philadelphia. Game operations joined in by flipping on a reprise of Hendricks' walk-up song, Aerosmith's “Sweet Emotion.”
Hendricks lost the shutout in bizarre fashion, but finished off the victory as the Cubs coasted past the Phillies 4-1 on Saturday afternoon. Hendricks (3-4) allowed 5 hits, struck out 7 and walked none. He hit one batter while throwing 104 pitches.
“I didn't want him coming out of that game,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “The contact against him was not hard. He was throwing strikes. His pitch numbers were in good shape. You could just see he wasn't getting tired.”
Hendricks did everything he needed to. On the first pitch of the ninth inning, he coaxed a fly ball to shallow right from Freddy Galvis. It should have been an easy out, but right fielder Jason Heyward lost the ball in the sun, tried to yell for help from second baseman Ben Zobrist, and the ball landed in the grass with neither fielder making an attempt to catch the ball.
“As soon as the ball went up, I knew there was no chance. It was right in the sun,” Heyward said. “So I was yelling his name as loud as I could. We talked about it afterward. He (Zobrist) said, 'I could hear you saying something, but I wasn't sure what it was.'”
Galvis ended up on second with a double, then took third on a ground out. The next batter, Ryan Howard, struck out on a pitch in the dirt and Galvis scampered home while catcher Miguel Montero made the throw to first.
Montero tried to look Galvis back to the bag, but with power-hitting lefty Howard at the plate, the Cubs were in an extreme shift and third baseman Javier Baez was nowhere near the base.
A run scored, but there was never any drama, as Hendricks retired Cameron Rupp on a grounder to end the game. The Cubs won their fourth straight and improved to 33-14, matching their season-high of 19 games above .500.
After the final out, both pitcher and catcher felt a key to the strong outing was Hendricks being able to throw his curve ball for strikes.
“That was part of the game plan Miggy and I went in with and executed it pretty well,” Hendricks said. “I'm trying to do that more and more in all my starts — mix my pitches, keep them off balance. That way, I don't have to rely on just two pitches.”
This could have been Hendricks' second career shutout. He went the distance at San Diego last year on May 21. It was his second complete game in 54 major-league starts/
“When you've got your No. 5 (starter) and you know he's going to go out and give you a quality start, you're in pretty good shape,” Montero said. “He always throws strikes. Sometimes he probably throws too many strikes. I think the key today was he was able to throw his curveball for strikes. It's huge. It's not just fastball, changeup. He's got another weapon to go to sometimes.”
The Cubs jumped to a quick lead when Dexter Fowler delivered the 16th leadoff home run of his career. The Cubs added a run in the first inning on doubles from Heyward and Zobrist, then went ahead 3-0 in the second when Heyward's double scored Addison Russell. Hendricks was out at the plate trying to score from first on the play.
Kris Bryant led off the sixth inning with a single and eventually scored on Montero's ground out. The Cubs improved to 20-3 when scoring first and 31-2 when scoring 4 or more runs.