DETROIT – The crackle of wood buckling under contact suggested Nico Hoerner had hit the ball off the handle of his bat. The swinging bunt dribbled toward the left side of the infield.
By contrast, Hoerner broke hard out of the batter’s box and beat Tigers third baseman Zach McKinstry’s on-the-run throw to first base.
The Cubs would go on to beat the Tigers 6-1, charged by five home runs. But at the time, in the top of the fifth inning, the Cubs were clinging to a one-run lead.
Hoerner’s hustle resulted in an extra run. The next pitch, Micahel Busch drove a homer into the right-field stands.
“McKinstry made some nice plays [Friday]; he bobbled that one a little bit,” manager Craig Counsell said after the game. “And maybe we caught a break there. But base runners is what helps, generally, things get started. And we’ll take it. Nico did his thing. Keep putting the ball in play, good things happen.”
On a team that has made taking care of the little things part of their identity, Counsell has pointed to Hoerner as a standout in that category.
That skill was on display on the base paths a couple weeks ago as he evaded a tag on a force play to buy an out in the midst of what would become a six-run rally against the Reds. It was evident on defense Thursday against the Nationals, as he made a blind diving tag on a throw from left field to turn a double into an out. It’s clear in the approach that’s led to a .400 batting average with runners in scoring position this season.
“There’s also a level of joy around the game of baseball in details, and talking through things, and arguing about things,” Hoerner said in a conversation with the Sun-Times. “And, whether it’s base running or defense, we’ve done a really good job of that as a group.”
Hoerner also traces his dedication to the details to the disappointment of missing the playoffs the last two seasons.
“The amount of games throughout the season that turn on a random out or base running play, you never know when it’s going to be,” he said. “And those moments kind of swing seasons too. And that sounds extreme, but it’s kind of all you can control, too.”
Last year, a seven-week slump put the Cubs in a hole that even a strong second half couldn’t dig them out of. The 2023 season came even more down to the wire.
In mid-September Cubs were in position to claim a wild-card spot. But in the last two and a half weeks of the season, they were swept by the Diamondbacks and Braves – a fluky defensive mistake costing them a win in each series – and fell a game short of a playoff berth.
The Diamondbacks jumped the Cubs in the Wild Card standings and stormed through the playoffs all the way to the World Series.
“It’s very easy to focus on what happened at the end of the year, and obviously wish a lot of things had been different in that time,” Hoerner said. “But you go back to May and June, and there’s probably four or five wins we left on the table at that point.
“And you definitely can say that for last year. Obviously, every year you’re going to have searches that are challenging, but last year, like our ‘bad’ was really bad. It was awful. Point being that there’s always going to be challenging times, but you really raise your floor when you play defense and run the bases at a high level, and give yourself a chance to stay in games regardless of how you’re swinging the bats because that’s going to fluctuate.”
Counsell, whose major-league career has spanned three decades as a player, executive and manager, is familiar with the late-season feeling of, “I wish we had one more game to play with.”
“You say that to yourself in September no matter what,” he said. “And remembering you said that to yourself is the hard part, and really applying that is the hard part. And that’s what Nico does, and he’s daily trying to do.”