The Chicago Cubs will try to complete a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday afternoon in Anaheim, Calif.
To do it, the Cubs will have to find a way to beat a pitcher who played a key role in helping them win the 2016 World Series.
Kyle Hendricks (6-8, 4.93 ERA), who spent the previous 11 seasons with Chicago before signing a free-agent deal with Los Angeles in November, will face his old team for the first time on Sunday. He will oppose fellow right-hander Jameson Taillon (8-6, 4.26), who is 2-2 with a 6.39 ERA in five career starts against the Angels.
Hendricks, who went to high school in nearby Mission Viejo, Calif., signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract with the Angels following a disappointing 4-12 campaign with Chicago in 2024. But he will be most remembered around Wrigley Field for a 16-8 season in 2016 when he led the major leagues with a 2.13 ERA, and he started two games in the World Series win over Cleveland.
“It’s a little different, for sure,” Hendricks said of the prospect of facing his old teammates. “For the Cubs fans, it might be a little shocking, but I’m just still loving life, enjoying what I do. But really cool to have the Cubs in town right now. Just excited.”
Hendricks said he still roots for his old team, which holds the first wild-card spot in the National League and is second in the Central Division, six games behind the Milwaukee Brewers.
“I’m a huge baseball fan, so you’re dialed in and following kind of everything,” Hendricks said. “I’m super-excited for what they’ve been doing this year. … I’m just really excited to see what they can do going into October. Rooting nothing but the best for them.”
Except for Sunday.
The Cubs won the series opener 3-2 against the Angels on Friday on Pete Crow-Armstrong’s go-ahead homer in the ninth and then followed with a 12-1 mugging on Saturday for the team’s fifth win in the past six games. Kyle Tucker went 3-for-5 with two home runs, a double and five RBIs, and backup catcher Reese McGuire hit his first career grand slam and drove in five runs to help send the Angels to their fourth defeat in five games.
It was the 18th time this season the Cubs scored 10 or more runs in a game.
Tucker, playing with a finger injury suffered on a June 1 head-first slide into second, entered the series with a 25-game homer-less drought and was batting just .138 with no extra-base hits in 16 games in August. He has three homers in the past two games.
“This was coming,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “This is the nature of the game. We don’t want slumps, we hate slumps, they’re mentally exhausting to go through, but they happen. And Kyle will be better moving forward because of this. … He’s a great player, and he works hard to figure it out and get back on track, and we need him to do it. And he’s done so.”
The Cubs also got another good start from rookie Cade Horton, who allowed just three hits over six shutout innings while striking out seven on Saturday. Horton, who has an 0.49 ERA over his last seven starts, needed just 34 pitches to get through the first four innings. The first 21 pitches he threw were strikes.
“I think that’s just kind of the way I pitch,” Horton said. “It’s get ahead and stay ahead. … Just continuing to stay on the attack and letting the result be what it is.”
–Field Level Media
