Kyle Hendricks delivers in likely final start for the Cubs

It is almost certainly the case that Kyle Hendricks made his last start in a Chicago Cubs uniform on Saturday.

There was a pyramid of baseballs waiting at his locker after the game; each of the 22 outs Hendricks recorded saved in individual cases by Ian Happ and a couple of Cubs’ staffers. They carefully gathered each one as Hendricks notched another out — at one point 13 of them in a row in a stretch from the third through seventh innings — and had them neatly stacked for him after the game was over.

It was fitting final touch to the accolades Hendricks has compiled over his 11 seasons with the Cubs. Happ also gathered the rest of the players in the clubhouse for a postgame meeting to list off Hendricks’ career accomplishments, in honor of the pitcher who has been his teammate for eight seasons. 

“We don’t know exactly what the future is going to hold for Kyle, here or elsewhere,” Happ said. “To honor the contribution he’s made to this team and this organization, he’s a perfect example of what it means to be a Chicago Cub. Not only what he’s done on the field, but who he is as a person. The way that he carries himself, the way that he works.

“It’s important in this game to honor that.”

There’s no scripting ahead of time how a start with the gravity of Saturday’s will go.

Often, a player’s ending to his tenure with a ballclub is unceremonious at best. It does not always matter what they did for an organization. The harsh reality is that the business side of the game kicks in, and very few of them get to go out with the pomp and circumstance they deserve.

But in his probable last start for the Cubs, Hendricks delivered an outing reminiscent of him at his best. He needed just 81 pitches to get through 7 1/3 innings, keeping the Cincinnati Reds scoreless and holding them to just four baserunners in the Cubs’ 3-0 victory at Wrigley Field. 

Hendricks said he felt the emotions of the start leading up to first pitch, and at times it was tough to settle those feelings and execute. Manager Craig Counsell said Hendricks told him he felt like getting through the first inning was the toughest part. But once he was past that first frame, Hendricks was in vintage form.

“[I was] really trying to stay with it, trying to stay with one pitch at a time, work on that mental side,” Hendricks said. “Just stay locked in on the game. But of course I was feeling the crowd. I was feeling the energy as I was going out for the sixth, the seventh, the eighth. I could feel them behind me.”

Hendricks went out for the eighth inning at under 80 pitches, but his departure from the mound after getting Cincinnati’s Santiago Espinal to ground out was about giving him a proper sendoff.

Counsell had decided before the game that he would let pitching coach Tommy Hottovy go to the mound, because Hottovy has been with the organization for the entirety of Hendricks’ major league career in some capacity (the last six seasons as his pitching coach). He’s seen nearly every pitch, including bullpen sessions, that Hendricks has thrown since he debuted on July 10, 2014.

There was no guarantee that Hendricks would get this moment. He was moved to the bullpen in mid-May after he struggled mightily through his first seven starts of the season. At that point, Hendricks had a 10.57 ERA and could barely give the Cubs three or four innings in a start.

Roughly a month later, Hendricks rejoined the rotation because of injuries to Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks. He still had rough outings after that, but Hendricks gradually returned to being the kind of pitcher Cubs fans were used to seeing earlier in his career, especially of late. After Saturday’s outing, Hendricks finished with a 2.89 ERA across five September starts. 

“I did not expect to be here, I would say that, after April and May,” Hendricks said. “There were moments where I shouldn’t have been on this team. Things happened a certain way where, luckily, they kept giving me opportunities. I’ve said it a lot, just how thankful I am to all my teammates for sticking with me, making me better, all the coaches for making me better and giving me the opportunities all year.

“To get that moment, to see it all the way through [and] finish the year, that’s something. It’s going to take me a while to soak all that in.”

Hendricks’ impact on his teammates is unmistakable.

Even as a position player, Happ said he learned a lot from Hendricks by observing the consistency and steadiness of his routine. He said he’s never seen bullpen sessions like Hendricks’, calling them one of the most impressive things he’s seen in baseball because of how Hendricks and the coaching staff worked to get him ready every week.

“He’s a tactician. That’s what he does. He’s meticulous about his preparation,” Happ said. “The way those guys would talk about the game and talk about a lineup and working through it, you know, it was an art.”

Hendricks will be a free agent this winter, and it’s not clear whether he fits in the Cubs’ pitching plans for 2025. He has been very clear that he intends to keep pitching, but he understands it will probably have to be elsewhere. 

“If I had my choice, I would love to be a Chicago Cub, but that’s so tough,” Hendricks said. “This organization is in such a good spot. We have so many good arms coming up, and in this game, you’ve got to perform. You’ve got to perform to be in a winning culture and winning atmosphere. I just didn’t do it this year, I didn’t have a great year. There’s ramifications for that, and so I could end up somewhere else.”

Given that reality, it was all the more special to have him make his last start in a Cubs uniform at the end of the season at Wrigley Field. In front of 38,180 fans watching a team cap off its second straight letdown season on Saturday, Hendricks helped give them a playoff atmosphere that hearkened back to him clinching the pennant in Game 6 of the 2016 NLCS or starting Game 7 of the World Series that year.

Counsell said he made it a point to tell some of the younger players on the team to be intentional about taking stock of the moment, because this otherwise objectively meaningless game at the end of September was going to be one they would remember.

“’This is going to be a memorable day,’” Counsell told them. “’You’re going to remember this day. It’s a game in September with two teams that [are] not playing for a playoff spot, but you’re going to remember today.’ … I think that happened for a bunch of guys, and I think that happened for Porter Hodge. I said, ‘You’re going to remember saving a game that Kyle pitched here in September. It’s going to be a game you remember for the rest of your life. It’s going to stick out a little bit.’”

Hendricks will turn 35 years old in December, and given both his resume and his better performance in the second half of this season — and especially his September — he will attract some suitors. His career will probably continue for at least a few more years, and it’s possible he makes a return to Wrigley as a guest, like former teammates and members of the ‘16 championship squad have.

And like them, Hendricks will almost certainly get the honor of a video tribute on the scoreboard. Beyond that, he merits being honored alongside the Cubs all-time greats.

“It’s pretty special to get to be here for that long. The contribution he’s made, especially to that World Series team, he’s a legend here,” Happ said. “When they play that video for legends, he’ll be back and waving to the crowd one day. We’ll see what the future holds, but he’s a special individual.”

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