After rookie Hayden Wesneski’s last start, in Pittsburgh, he was asked if pitching in the big leagues is as easy as he has made it look. He chuckled.
“No, it’s really not,” he said. “There’s a lot of preparation that goes into it. Plus, I have two great catchers that helped me out with this kind of stuff — and then the staff on top of it. They’ve made it really easy to be comfortable here. But, no, I’m just on a roll right now.”
That roll continued Wednesday against the Phillies at Wrigley Field. In the Cubs’ 4-2 victory, he held Philadelphia to one run through five-plus innings.
“I haven’t had a whole lot of time to reflect on it,” Wesneski said after the game, “but I do talk to my dad after outings, and he said that was probably the best outing I had where I didn’t have my stuff.”
That gave him a 2.33 ERA through five outings. All three of his starts have lasted at least five innings.
“He knows what he wants to do,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “He knows what makes him successful. That, in and of itself, is such a huge thing for young guys to be able to do when they come up. … Yes, we’re going to be able to find ways to continue to work on things and home things in, but his knowledge of himself, what makes him tick, what makes him good, I think is the key foundation for what he does.”
Things won’t always look this easy. As Wesneski pitches more, as happens with all rookies, teams around the league will get more information on him. And once they have more detailed scouting reports on him, he’ll have to adjust.
On a smaller scale, he already has gone through part of that process. He realized that even though his slider has good movement, big-league hitters are going to be able to get a hold of it if he’s always throwing it in the middle of the plate. He adjusted before his first start and has even thrown a slider-heavy immaculate inning since.
“He knows that if things go awry, he has a bad outing or two, it’s not back to the drawing board changing everything,” Hottovy said. “It’s like minor adjustments, minor things, and he just gets better.”
Steele running out of season
Lefty Justin Steele “threw really well” in his bullpen Tuesday, according to manager David Ross, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be back from the injured list this season.
Steele (lower back strain) is scheduled for another high-intensity bullpen. After that, Hottovy said, the Cubs will determine whether they want Steele to get in a game for a couple innings or turn his attention to the offseason.
“It just makes sense to me to just go ahead and send him off on a high note,” Ross said, “to make sure he’s healthy and let him go ahead and start implementing the routine and the [offseason] program.”
