SMART CHOICE, PROFESSOR!
Maddon picks Hendricks for Game 1 start — now he must learn to trust his best pitcher
Joe Maddon got it right Wednesday, naming Kyle Hendricks the Cubs’ Game 1 starter for the National League Division Series.
Now let’s see if Maddon can get it right by resisting the urge to pull his best pitcher early in playoff games this season. Joe with the chance to tinker in the postseason? On national TV? It’s like a 40- year smoker being given the key to a hookah bar.
Some of us are still scratching our heads over his decision to yank Hendricks after 4‰ innings of Game 7 of last year’s World Series, this after his pitcher had allowed only one earned run. Think of all the headaches Maddon might have saved himself and Cubs fans if he had let Hendricks continue to battle hitters.
Perhaps Jon Lester or someone else could have pitched in the eighth inning if Hendricks had gone seven. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been Rajai Davis’ home run off an overworked Aroldis Chapman in the eighth. Perhaps Chapman wouldn’t have been in tears in the dugout afterward. And perhaps Maddon wouldn’t be known as much for almost blowing a Cubs World Series as he is for winning one.
When in doubt, stick with your best pitcher, Joe.
That’s what Maddon did in choosing Hendricks for the game Friday against the Nationals. The right- hander has been excellent since coming back from a finger injury in late July after missing about seven weeks. You’d have a hard time finding many better pitchers over the last two seasons than Hendricks, who finished third in last season’s NL Cy Young voting.
Someone asked Maddon when Hendricks had gained the manager’s “total confidence.’’
All I could think was, did I miss something? If anyone is down a quart on respect and trust, it’s Hendricks.
He started five games in the 2016 playoffs, and Maddon kept quite a grip on his innings: 3‰, 5„, 7„, 4„ and 4‰. In other words, he treated the NL’s regularseason ERA leader the same way he treated a middling John Lackey. Does that sound like total confidence?
“He’s just grown over the last couple of years,’’ Maddon said. “Right now, I think he’s at the top of his game.’’
The good news for the Cubs and their fans is that Hendricks doesn’t appear to need anyone’s affirmation.
“If you worry yourself with that, you’re going to be worried for a long time,’’ he said. “For me, that’s kind of always been my road — kind of under the radar. I kind of like it that way, in a way.
“My focus has always been simple: Just make good pitches. I’m not worried about the respect or anything else. I’ve just got to get outs.’’
Lester will pitch Game 2, Jose Quintana gets Game 3 and Jake Arrieta is scheduled for Game 4, if there is one, though he is still dealing with a strained hamstring. Hendricks would pitch a Game 5.
Let’s not try to make Hendricks’ Game 1 start into something it isn’t. It isn’t about his ascension to star status as much as it is Lester’s returning Sept. 2 from a shoulder injury.
“If Jon had not been injured more recently [ than Hendricks],
we probably would have gone the other way,’’ Maddon said.
Hendricks is nicknamed “The Professor’’ because he went to Dartmouth and because he beats hitters with guile, not gas. And he’s smart enough not to bite when a certain columnist asks him if he thinks he’ll be allowed to pitch deeper in games this time around.
“I’m taking it pitch by pitch,’’ he said, offering an Ivy League- level cliché. “That’s the only way you can do it. That’s how it is anytime you get to the playoffs. You’ve got all hands on deck. You really just have to see how the situation plays out, how every game goes. I’m going to be ready to go and just give Joe and the team as many pitches as I can.’’
He had only 63 in Game 7 of the World Series. That’s like an appetizer for a starter.
Lester was asked if Hendricks should have been allowed to pitch past the fifth inning.
“I don’t know, that’s tough to say,’’ he said. “I know everybody keeps talking about Game 7, Game 7. I think when you have a Game 7 in the World Series, there are things that happen that you normally don’t do in a regular- season game or even an NLCS game or even a Game 5. So I feel like it was kind of a no- holds- barred, we’ve-got- to- make-decisions-as- we- go, and that’s what Joe did.
“But he was throwing the ball really well. He’d settled back down and was throwing the ball well.’’
Maddon would not commit to giving Hendricks more breathing room, inningswise.
“It just depends,’’ he said. “It just depends on how it’s going. You can pull guys if you have the right guys behind that guy. If you don’t have the same kind of backup, you might not be able to do the same things. Every situation is different. Right now, I anticipate him pitching well into this game on Friday night. I think he’s there. I think he’s there emotionally, physically, mentally. “Every game’s different, man.’’ Uh- oh.