Cubs' Kyle Hendricks is last player standing from 2016 champs, but major struggles have clock ticking

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Two bad pitches.

That’s how many Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks figured he threw Friday at Wrigley Field in an outing so un-good, the Pirates tagged him for eight runs — seven earned — and 11 hits in his 4⅔ innings.

“Just bizarre,” Hendricks said, “so many soft hits falling.”

Eleven hits is one fewer than the most Hendricks has ever allowed in a big-league game. Seven earned runs — already the third time this season he has let in that many — tied for his most since the White Sox got him for eight in 2021.

Two bad pitches? Really? It might be a case of math only a “Professor” could understand.

Manager Craig Counsell didn’t seem to understand it.

“We certainly need better,” Counsell said. “There were a bunch of hits, obviously, and we end up with eight runs on the board, and that’s not going to work and that’s not going to be good enough. He didn’t have a good day.”

He has had what the naked eye can only view as a hideous beginning to his 11th Cubs season. The team’s starters went into Friday’s game with a collective 3.21 ERA, second-best in the National League, and that factored in a disastrous 10.04 from Hendricks. Now his 0-4 record through seven starts comes with an even-harder-to-tolerate ERA of 10.57, raising a question for a first-year Cubs skipper who hasn’t been here long enough to form a sentimental attachment to the last player standing from the 2016 World Series champions:

Is ol’ No. 28 out of chances yet, or close to it?

Hendricks, 34, was good enough to start Game 7 in Cleveland eight seasons ago and enduring enough to still be clocking in for work at Wrigley. That alone is worth taking a moment to appreciate and savor. Former leadoff man Dexter Fowler was at the ballpark to sing the seventh-inning stretch Friday, and it was impossible not to drift back to his home run to start Game 7 and his shared glory with Hendricks.

But Fowler — Mr. “You Go, We Go” — was out of here as a player what feels like a lifetime ago. He went like all the rest of them did in a steady, sometimes cruel trickle, leaving only one.

Hendricks surely takes some pride in that, in being the last to don the uniform and represent the team that changed everything.

“It’s nice,” he said, “but I take pride in getting the ball every fifth day and being a consistent guy out there and giving my team a chance to win. That’s what I take pride in, [but] I’m not getting that right now. That’s really all that matters to me. …

“I’m so lucky, so grateful for all the time I’ve had here. It’s been absolutely unbelievable, amazing. The fans have been everything. But my focus is just on what I’m doing right now, my process and my pitching.”

Hendricks has performed like a shell of the pitcher he was in 2016 and in all other periods when he was one of the best starters the Cubs had. One of only 13 pitchers to make 250 starts with the Cubs, Hendricks has made 253 and it’s fair for anyone to be asking if there should be a 254th. And even if there are more, how many more can there be if he doesn’t get much better?

“I think we’ve got to look at the start a little closer and then see what’s going on,” Counsell said. “We’re in a tough stretch right now. We’ve got eight pitchers on the injured list. We’ve got to keep doing our best to help Kyle turn the corner.”

As it is, Hendricks doesn’t need to set an alarm these mornings with how loud the clock on his Cubs career is ticking.

“If you’re not getting results in this game, yeah, they’re going to pick another option,” Hendricks said. “You’re going to get passed on. That is the reality of the situation, but my thoughts definitely aren’t there.”

About a month before spring training in 2018, Hendricks came as close as he ever would to bragging. At the time, he was 38-22 with a 2.94 ERA, had thrown 50 postseason innings and was full of hard-earned confidence.

“I’ve been trying to prove that I’m a top pitcher my whole life,” he said.

It didn't quite work out that way after all, though he certainly came close.

In May, June and July of 2021, he was peak Professor for perhaps the last time, going 12-1 with a 2.89 ERA over a 17-start stretch. Then came the Cubs’ deadline purge — you know the names — after which an admittedly heartbroken Hendricks had the worst two-month stretch of his career to that point.

Hendricks kept going. In June of last year, he said, “I’m not satisfied. I’m not done.”

He still had another full year on his contract, but that year is now — and it couldn’t be going much worse.

Hendricks’ old manager, Joe Maddon, used to tell him, “Just be you.”

His current one has encouraged him at times with a message that’s similar: “What’s your foundation and what has made you great? That stuff still works, and you have to believe in that.”

But along came Friday and, well, those two bad pitches. And all else that went with it — none of it encouraging, if we’re being honest.