Ace in a hole: Hendricks struggles early in return originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Freddie Freeman’s first inning home run of Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks landed somewhere on Sheffield Ave.
Guillermo Heredia’s solo blast six batters later landed out in the hedges in dead center field.
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The Braves’ four home runs in the inning came in all shapes and sizes, but the end result was the same: an early 6-0 deficit for the Cubs in an uncharacteristic showing from Hendricks.
“When he takes the mound, you feel like you’re going to be able to settle in and let the game come to you,” Cubs manager David Ross said postgame Sunday.
“It wasn’t his night tonight.”
Hendricks made his first in 11 days and Atlanta jumped on him right away. Along with Freeman and Heredia, Travis d’Arnaud (two-run blast) and Ehire Adrianza (solo) took him deep in the opening frame to build an early cushion.
Atlanta scored seven times in Hendricks’ four innings en route to a 13-4 win.
“That’s a huge hole to scratch out of,” Hendricks said. “It doesn’t happen [to me] very often.”
Hendricks was a last-minute scratch from his start Tuesday in Milwaukee while feeling under the weather. He said Sunday he was dealing with a cold and it’s something he pitches with once or twice a season in a non-COVID-19 world. After two coaches recently tested positive for COVID-19, he and the club wanted to be extra cautious.
But Hendricks didn't use the layoff as an excuse. He said was able to throw every day since Tuesday, including off a mound on Friday.
“Just not very good overall from the start,” he said of his outing. “Not aggressive, falling behind guys and everything was flat.”
Ross pointed to Hendricks settling down to give the Cubs four innings, which also allowed him to also get some work in for his next outing.
"That's definitely a positive that we can take from tonight.
Ross called the outing "extremely" surprising but expressed confidence in his ace moving forward.
"We trust Kyle and have a lot of confidence in Kyle when he takes the mound, for sure."
