In perhaps the least surprising news before the regular season, the Chicago Cubs officially told pitcher Hayden Wesneski that he had earned a job in the starting rotation.
The 25-year-old was outstanding all spring, spinning a 2.12 ERA in five starts, mixing impressive offspeed pitches with his fastball that touched as high as 97 mph.
Wesneski indicated that pitching coach Tommy Hottovy tracked him down and needed to talk with him. From there, the two walked into manager David Ross' office, where the young pitcher learned he had made the rotation.
“You just don’t know what to say,” a visibly emotional Wesneski told reporters on Saturday. “I wish I had something better for you, but I just didn’t talk a whole lot. I was speechless.”
Earlier in the day, the Cubs optioned Adrian Sampson to Triple-A, leaving just Wesneski and Javier Assad in the running for the fifth starter spot.
However, it was clear that the former was always the front-runner, given how well he pitched this spring.
Hottovy, a former Big League pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals, offered advice to Wesneski to let it soak in, but the work is just getting started.
“You can take a little breath and kind of get your thoughts together, but it’s time to go,” the Cubs' pitching coach said. “It’s not time to back off now because we’re leaving Arizona. It’s time to finish strong and put ourselves in the right frame of mind so when we hit the ground running once the season starts, we’re where we need to be.”
Ross has only named Marcus Stroman as the Opening Day starter. Beyond that, it's unclear when Wesneski will make his first regular-season start.
With Kyle Hendricks out until at least May, with June more likely the timetable for a return, Wesneski will have the chance to impress the coaching staff as a permanent fixture in the rotation.
He'll have to keep that same "compete mode" mindset that he brought into camp, that ultimately won him a job in the starting rotation, and that has the potential to keep with the Big League club all year long.
“That’s just the way I look at it and it gets my head in the right spot,” Wesneski said. “I’m not saying that it’s true or not true. It’s just one of those things where it keeps me in the right headspace cause all this stuff can get very distracting and I gotta remember that I have to throw a baseball over the plate, ultimately.”
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