As he was trying to finish off Max Muncy for the final out of last night’s game, Cubs reliever Porter Hodge at one point asked for time, turned away from home plate, rubbed his chest and started taking deep breaths. , he was clearly dealing with something, and needed the athletic trainer and Craig Counsell to come out. It was scary.
Thankfully, after taking a bit of a break, talking to the athletic trainer, and withstanding some extremely classy boos from the biggest idiots in attendance, Hodge was able to get back on the mound and finish out the game (thanks to Pete Crow-Armstrong’s incredible game-ending catch). He was OK.
Still, any time a player is indicating an issue in the heart or lungs area, you’re going to be concerned going forward until you know what the heck happened.
It turns out it was largely what it looked like: Hodge’s heart started racing and he was having trouble getting it to slow down.
“We noticed he was just going super fast, and then at some point, his heart was racing, and just to the point where he was concerned a little bit,” said Craig Counsell after the game, . “He said it had happened to him before, and it would go away, and nothing would be of it. So it took him a couple minutes, but it went away, and he said, āI’m good to go.ā”
Even though Hodge has previously been checked out and cleared for this issue, Counsell reportedly indicated the Cubs may have a further evaluation done. You can’t be too careful when it comes to something like this.
So for now, the good news is that Hodge was ultimately OK last night. Where this goes is a little more open-ended, but hopefully it’s not something that takes him away from the team before the season is over, or, more importantly, hopefully it’s not something that requires further medical attention.
