Kyle Hendricks Will Return to the Chicago Cubs and Start Tomorrow Night
This is exciting. I know that we have to keep our hopes and expectations in serious check, but it’s just gonna be so good to see Kyle Hendricks on the mound at Wrigley Field for the first time in nearly a year.
It’s happening tomorrow: David Ross announced after tonight’s win that Kyle Hendricks will be activated off the Injured List and start tomorrow night against the Mets. Jameson Taillon will now start on Saturday (Bastian).
The Cubs are, for the moment, at just 12 pitchers and 14 position players, so you can reasonable assume it’ll actually be a position player who heads out for Hendricks. Edwin Rios would be the logical choice, given how he once again has seen virtually no action since being called up.
Hendricks, 33, has not pitched in the big leagues since July 5 of last year, and even then, he had become something of a shell of the guy he was before 2021. A season and a half of inconsistency, inexplicable losses of command, explicable losses in velocity, and a whole lot of hard contact preceded a trip to the Injured List from which he would not return.
Following non-surgical recovery from a capsular tear in his pitching shoulder – an injury that threatens a career – Hendricks worked for months on a rehab that would remake his body and his mechanics. He feels good now. He feels settled in his new arm stroke. He’s even got a little bit more zip on his fastball.
Your realistic hope is that Hendricks stays healthy, and pitches like a capable back-of-the-rotation starter for the Cubs the rest of the way, while lending his veteran presence and knowledge to the young staff. I don’t want to get myself any higher than that, even if he did start to look really good by the end of his rehab.
How about five or six competitive innings tomorrow, and we’ll pop the champagne that The Professor is back?
Source: bleachernation.com
