WASHINGTON — Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks’ is scheduled to throw a bullpen in Chicago to continue to hone his mechanics.
Hendricks (strained right shoulder) has made two rehab starts in Triple-A Iowa, with mixed results. But teams don’t put much stock in minor-league rehab stats. Manager David Ross said Hendricks felt good in his last start and had “no issues with the shoulder.”
The team did, however, notice some tweaks they want to make, reinforcing the work Hendricks has done to shorten his arm path and add athleticism to his delivery.
“We’ve got this timeline of, yes, getting Kyle back healthy,” Cubs assistant pitching coach Daniel Moskos told the Sun-Times, “but a runway to work on some things, where you don’t necessarily always have that window when you’re an established starter.”
The Cubs hope that the changes, which they started implementing when Hendricks was rehabbing at the Cubs’ spring training complex in Arizona last fall, will both help him rebound from his dip in production the last couple years and maintain his health.
They anticipated that mechanics could slip in a game setting, as the velocity ticked up and the focus shifted to getting outs.
“It was a lot of the same stuff,” Moskos said. “Just continuing to iron out the details and make the good reps more common and the bad reps less common, and try and build on the aggregate there.”
Roster moves
To make room for right-hander Jameson Taillon (strained left groin) to be activated off the 15-day injured list to start Thursday, the Cubs optioned reliever Jeremiah Estrada to Triple-A Iowa.
In a procedural move, they recalled right-hander Adrian Sampson and put him on the 15-day injured list with a right meniscus injury. Sampson hasn’t pitched since April 8 in Triple-A.
