How the Cubs pitching staff prepared for a three-week Summer Camp

As the Cactus League shuttered its doors and Cubs players scattered across the country – some headed home, others stayed in Arizona -Tommy Hottovy stepped into uncharted territory.

Hottovy has been the Cubs pitching coach since December of 2018, so he's guided his pitchers through offseasons before. But going from ramping up in Spring Training to not knowing when Major League Baseball would return? No one had a play book for that.

"Our philosophy was be over-ready and not try to play catchup," starting pitcher Tyler Chatwood said. "So, luckily we were able to do that."

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Fast forward to Sunday, Day 3 of Cubs Summer Camp. By the end of the holiday weekend, four of the Cubs' five presumptive starters had thrown at least two innings in an intrasquad scrimmage and four relievers had also gotten time on the mound.

"It's just a testament to the work those guys put in over the process," Hottovy said.

During the shutdown, Hottovy held regular meetings with the pitchers via video conference. They bounced ideas off each other and discussed their overall approach.

"We had so many resources between Tommy, Rossy (manager David Ross), the whole coaching staff staying in touch with us the whole time," right-hander Kyle Hendricks said. "And then other players. So, we really did it as a group."

Out of those conversations, Hottovy learned that many of the pitchers wanted arm strength to be a focus during the break.

"Not just pitch-count wise," Hottovy said, "but to feel that their arm was in the right throwing shape."

So, he incorporated that into the pitchers' throwing programs.

Each pitchers' program was catered to the resources and facilities he had access to, as well as his own goals. But before ramping up for Summer Camp, most of the starting pitchers were throwing one bullpen session early in the week and a simulated game later in the week. As the season got closer, they added a second bullpen.

"The reason I liked getting to those two bullpens," Hottovy said, "was because now you kind of start simulating what it's like to be on a five-game rotation."

By the time they entered camp, many of the starting pitchers were already throwing multiple-inning simulation games. By Day 2 of camp, the Cubs were ready for a short intrasquad game. Hendricks threw three innings, and Yu Darvish threw two.

"Both of them had actually thrown more pitches in a simulated outing prior to coming here," Hottovy said, "but we wanted to back that off a little bit, obviously knowing that the intensity was going to go up. They're back on the field with players behind them facing more of our lineup, more of our hitters."

On Sunday, the Cubs stretched an intrasquad out to five-innings. Chatwood and Alec Mills started, and Dan Winkler, Duane Underwood, Rex Brothers and James Norwood all pitched in relief.

"Everything's based off pitching," Ross said and then laughed. "We give the pitchers a hard time all the time; the pitchers kind of dictate how long the day's going to go because these guys have got to get their pitch counts up."

With less than three weeks until the season opener, Hottovy's job still doesn't return to normal. Instead of setting a schedule based on the order of the pitching rotation, he's "front-loading" the starters. He also is preparing some relivers to throw extended innings.

"Right now, in my mind we have seven opening day starters," he said, "…You can't space them out too much in my opinion just because you can't take that chance."