ANAHEIM, Calif. — Right-hander Kyle Hendricks originally wasn’t lined up to pitch this weekend, in the Angels’ only series of the year against the Cubs. But then, as fate would have it, José Soriano went on the paternity list this week, bumping back Hendricks’ start day to Sunday, when he’ll face the team that he represented for 11 seasons.
“It’s going to be fun, for sure,” Hendricks said Friday with a grin.
The timing will give him two games to catch up with his former teammates and coaches on the field. On Friday, he chatted with a small group before his bullpen, including pitching coach Tommy Hottovy.
“Same guy,” Hottovy said. “Happy Kyle, very determined to do what he needed to do today in his bullpen, get his work in, but takes the time to go say hi to everybody. Kind of typical Kyle.”
Hendricks signed with the Angels in November, joining a new team for the first time in his major-league career.
His storied Cubs tenure included the 2016 ERA title, 7 ½ masterful innings against the Dodgers in Game 6 of the NLCS, an 81-pitch shutout, and plenty more.
He had an up-and-down last three seasons in Chicago, including a season-ending shoulder injury in 2022.
Hendricks hasn’t quite recaptured the glory days, but he’s carved out a regular rotation role with the Angels, posting a 4.93 ERA, while guiding their young pitching staff.
“I’m glad that he was able to find a fit for him that was going to allow him to have another experience, but also continue to show that he can do it at a high level,” Hottovy said. “And we’ve seen that out of Kyle year in, year out, and I still think he could pitch another 10 years if he wanted to because he just knows how to pitch, he knows how to get weak contact, he knows how to navigate a lineup.”
Roster move
The Cubs recalled right-hander Javier Assad to start against the Angels on Friday. In a corresponding move, they put right-handed reliever Ryan Braiser on the 15-day IL with a strained left groin.
Brasier said he couldn’t be sure if it was a recurrence of the exact injury that cropped up this spring and sidelined him from the beginning of the Cubs’ domestic schedule until late May.
“But it’s the same area and kind of the same feeling,” he told the Sun-Times. “I don’t feel it much outside of throwing and pitching, but I can feel it pitching.”
Brasier has been pitching through the discomfort lately, but it began to affect his delivery and performance. He said the injury was less severe than his groin strain earlier in the year.
“Try to give him a couple weeks here and kind of get him back to a form we saw earlier in the season,” manager Craig Counsell said.
The Cubs temporarily are carrying six starters on the roster, as they reset the rotation after a doubleheader earlier this week.
“We’re not going to go with a six-man rotation,” Counsell said of the plan moving forward. “But we’ll see what happens.”
