BOSTON – When Cubs manager Craig Counsell told right-hander Hayden Wesneski Saturday that he was going to start the next day in place of an injured Jordan Wicks, Wesneski said:
“My job is to get the first guy out.”
Counsell thought that was a good way to approach the task.
“It’s not to think about, ‘I’ve got to get five innings or six innings,” Counsell said. “It’s just ,get the first guy out and then move on to the next thing.”
In the Cubs’ 5-4 loss to the Red Sox on Sunday, Wesneski got the first guy out, fielding Jarren Duran’s soft ground ball and running it to first base. He went on to hold Boston to one earned run through four innings – just three days removed from throwing 2 ⅓ scoreless innings of relief against the Astros.
“We got exactly what we needed from Hayden,” Counsell said after the game. “And that was four strong innings. Put us in a position to make the game work.”
Wesneski’s consistency so far this season – stemming from confidence and tweaks to his delivery – is a promising sign for a team that will have to lean on him even more while the rotation is shorthanded.
Wesneski hit a bit of a sophomore slump last season. This month, he’s been focused on streamlining his delivery.
“The delivery had gotten really big and really [was] starting to get tough to sync up,” assistant pitching coach Daniel Moskos recently told the Sun-Times. “He was starting to pull off the ball a lot, which was messing with pitch shapes and execution.”
Wesneski can trace the issues back to an effort to get into his legs more. The goal made sense. Pitchers generate power from their lower half. But Wesneski was sinking into his back leg and lengthening his arm path to account for a slower lower half. And when his lower half wasn’t consistent, it threw off the timing even more.
Moskos, who had coached Wesneski in the Yankees farm system before the right-hander was traded to the Cubs, had several phone calls with Wesneski and Triple-A pitching coach Tony Cougoule to collaborate on adjustments.
“What we tried to do is just simplify,” Wesneski told the Sun-Times last week. “Where it’s like, stand tall, lean … use the slope and the momentum of you going down the mound better.”
When the Cubs recalled Wesneski for his season debut a week and a half ago, the difference was clear.
“I thought that was probably the best his delivery has been in a while,” Moskos said. “Most consistent, and his stuff was the most consistent. It’s a really simple approach, simple plan of attack, and just went out and executed. And I think it just freed him up to just be happy and go compete.
“I think his delivery had been wearing on him, the lack of execution had been wearing on him. All things trending in the right direction, but most importantly, simple, positive thoughts, and, just go execute a plan.”
Wesneski, a perfectionist, wasn’t quite as bullish.
“It does help with the confidence, like, ‘Okay, this is the right path,’” he said. “I also feel like I should be at the ‘great’ stage, not the ‘good’ stage.”
With his standards set high, he continued to stack one strong outing on top of another, through a new test Sunday.
“I always say, relieving, we pick the hitters you face,” Counsell said before the game, “and starting, they pick the hitters you face.”
If Wesneski had a little better luck, he would have posted another zero in the runs column. The first run he allowed was unearned. And the second scored on a ground ball that hit third base and shot straight up.
As it was, he kept the game close enough, while the Cubs offense was dormant, to give them a chance at a comeback. In the eighth inning, Mike Tauchman’s three-run home run tied up the game at four runs apiece. But the Red Sox won it with a walk-off single by Tyler O’Neil.