NEWSLETTER
Although he was charged with a few runs – which seems like a TON for a Cubs starting pitcher of late – that was a solid start from Hayden Wesneski yesterday. He’s facing a relatively stacked Padres lineup, he doesn’t get some key calls, he suffers some bloop fate, and he still manages a Quality Start.
For the game, Wesneski threw 6.0 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits and one walk, while striking out three.
It continued a trend of seeing significant improvements from Wesneski this year, and you feel a lot more confident with him making starts than you did at this time last year, when he was really struggling (especially against lefties).
“It helps for someone like me that has been moved up and down,” Wesneski said of the early-season success, per Cubs.com. “It just confirms that I should be here, right? And I deserve to pitch in the big leagues, or I should pitch in the big leagues. And it also gives me a check point of like, ‘Hey, you’re doing the right stuff. You’re doing the right work. Continue to do that.’”
Will he get more chances to continue doing that?
Well, you’d think so now that the Cubs have announced that Kyle Hendricks will make another rehab start at Iowa. With the off-day today, the Cubs would’ve been able to bring Hendricks back up on normal rest, taking the spot Wesneski has been filling in the rotation. I don’t see any way Craig Counsell is taking anyone from the front four out (Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Javier Assad), so if there’s not an injury, and if the Cubs aren’t going to go full six-man rotation, then it would HAVE to be Wesneski coming out for Hendricks.
So that means Wesneski has to get another start, right? Well, Craig Counsell wouldn’t quite commit to it after yesterday’s game.
“Wes pitching effectively helps us no matter what,” he said, per the Tribune. “We want to get healthy of course, and hopefully we’re always trending toward getting healthy, but he’s pitching well and that’s going to help us no matter what. We’ll kind of figure that out as we go. Good pitchers are going to help us win games.”
Although the Cubs do have the option of using Ben Brown in the rotation and thus shifting Wesneski to the bullpen sooner rather than later, I don’t know how you could justify not using Wesneski again the next time through. Maybe if you REALLY hated the match-up against the Braves, and though Brown had a better shot, then you could do it? But my gut says it’ll be Wesneski once more, and then the Cubs will re-evaluate the situation after that outing and Hendricks’ next start at Iowa.
On the year, Wesneski has posted a 1.59 ERA across 22.2 innings (5 appearances, 3 starts), with an 18.9% K rate and a 4.4% BB rate. He’s living in the strike zone more than ever – and you see the impact there on the strikeout and walk rates – but his groundball rate is up to 46.3%, his hard contact rate is just 35.3%, and his barrel rate is a minuscule 2.9%. Just four pitchers this year have a lower barrel rate in at least 20 innings pitched. Sure, there’s probably going to be some regression there, and he’s going to need to miss more bats overall. But I kinda like the idea that he’s learning he can attack aggressively in the zone and not necessarily get blown up every time.
