Last night, Kyle Hendricks made his 22nd start of the season, appearing in his 274th game as a Chicago Cub. And it was a good one! It’s never easy to pitch at Coors Field, but Hendricks tossed six innings of one-run baseball, allowing just two hits and three walks against seven strikeouts (his second-highest K total in a start this year).
With thജe end of the season approaching, and the possibility that the last-remaining player from the 2016 World Champion team could be departing, it never feels like a bad idea to spotlight Kyle Hendricks when he gives us the chance.
Kyle Hendricks Was Great Last Night
And in classic Professor fashion, Kyle Hendricks was humble after the game, crediting his catcher and defense for “one of the best” starts he’s had all year:
"Results wise, that was one of the best I've had all year."
Kyle Hendricks allowed only 1 run over 6 innings. — Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee)
Here’s :
“Miggy was just awesome today. Miggy really stayed with me. Honestly, my stuff wasn’t great, (even though) I was executing pretty well, but Migyy was just staying on it. He saw where the holes were, he knew how to set them up with it, playing my fastball really well. All props to him.”
Hendricks is perhaps correct that he didn’t have his best stuff yesterday (his velocity and spin rates were down across the board), but he did generate 13 whiffs and 14 called strikes last night, good for an excellent 32 CSW%, and his highest whiff rate in a game this year. And it was just so nice to see … especially because we are likely very close to the end.
What’s Next for Hendricks and the Cubs?
When the final out of the 2024 World Series is recorded, the five-year extension Kyle Hendricks signed in March of 2🍷019 will come to an end. And that means that The Professor will becomeℱ a 35-year-old free agent following what is likely to be regarded as a terrible overall season (6.25 ERA, 5.02 FIP). The odds of the Cubs re-signing him, for a variety of reasons, strike me as extremely low.
Yes, you can always use more pitching, but the Cubs need front-of-the-rotation arms more than they need depth. As of today, the cast of *potential* starters returning for next season runs pretty deep: Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Jordan Wicks, Javier Assad, Ben Brown, Caleb Kilian, and Hayden Wesnesnki, not to mention (hopefully) Cade Horton. If Kyle Hendricks decided to keep playing, I just don’t think it’s going to be on a big league deal with the Cubs.
Kyle Hendricks, Cubs Legend
And if his Cubs career does come to an end, what a career it will have been. Aside from being the most accountable and humble player/teammate in recent memory, Hendrickꦓs has been one of the most p🌟rolific and consequential Chicago Cubs starting pitchers in franchise history.
Just take a look at some of his🀅 stats/rankings to date and try to say otherwise:
Kyle Hendricks was also the 2016 ERA leader, the starting pitcher that almost single-handedly sent the Cubs to the World Series with a dominant NLCS Game 6 performance, and the starter for Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. While we’re here, he also had two top-10 Cy Young vote finishes (including a top-3) and has always been an incredibly steady defender and pickoff artist. So again, if this is the end, we are witnessing the end of a Chicago Cub LEGEND.
But, hey, it’s not over yet. The Cubs have 13 games remaining, which means Kyle Hendricks should get at least two more starts before the book is closed on 2024. And fittingly enough, he is lined up for the final Friday 1:20 start at Wrigley Field of the season this week. That’s beautiful.
We’ll do a much longer goodbye and thank you IF this does ultimately prove to be the end – again, we just don’t know for sure what he or the Cubs are planning – but I wanted to give him his flowers while he was still on the mound and following a really nice start in Colorado. Kyle Hendricks has had a wonderful caꦉreer and is one of my a🤪ll-time favorite Chicago Cubs.
