Dissecting Kyle Hendricks’ 81-Pitch Complete Game Shutout

Chicago Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks, right, is congratulated by teammates after a 4-0 win against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Friday, May 3, 2019. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images)
Chicago Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks, right, is congratulated by teammates after a 4-0 win against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Friday, May 3, 2019. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images)

Chicago Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks demonstrates how even a soft-tosser can dominate an opponent by mixing up his pitches, throwing strikes and working spots.

Want to learn how to pitch? Study the video of Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks’ performance Friday against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cubs right-hander shut out the Cardinals 4-0 on just four hits Friday. More remarkably, he needed just 81 pitches – roughly five innings worth for an average starter these days — to do it.
It was only the fifth nine-inning complete game thrown in the major leagues this season, and the only one requiring fewer than 100 pitches. It was also a major performance turnaround for

Hendricks, who came into the game with a 1-4 record and 5.33 ERA. (In fact, Friday’s shutout alone knocked more than a full point off Hendricks’ 2019 ERA.)

Kyle Hendricks is known as being the antithesis of the modern flame-thrower. On Friday he threw only one pitch above 88 mph, an 88.3 mph fifth inning four-seam fastball that Kolten Wong took on the outside corner for a strike. Rather, Hendricks stopped the NL Central leaders – who came into the game averaging 5.29 runs per game — thanks to a combination of factors. Most – though perhaps not all – were of his own making.

Here’s an itemization:

He threw strikes. Hendricks ‘ 81 pitches included only 15 called balls. Only once did he run up a three-ball count, that being to Paul DeJong in the top of the fourth inning. On the 3-2 pitch, DeJong sent a sharp ground ball into the hole that Javier Baez speared and turned into an out.

He kept St. Louis hitters off balance. Hendricks threw 10 2-seam or 4-seam fastballs the first time through the Cardinal order, then barely showed either pitch to them the rest of the game. Instead, he relied on a variety of changeups, curves, and sinkers for all but six of his final 57 pitches.

He worked the edges. Hendricks absolutely commanded the fringes of the strike zone. He offered only 16 pitches all day over what might be considered the heart of the plate while placing 36 on one or more of the strike zone’s fringe areas.

He worked ahead. Of the 30 batters he faced, Hendricks fell behind in the count to only eight, never by more than 2-0. And he only fell that far behind twice, to Paul Goldschmidt in the first inning (he grounded out) and to DeJong on the game’s final at-bat (he popped up).

Hendricks did get some help, both from his fielders and from Cardinal batters. Baez, third baseman Kris Bryant, left fielder Kyle Schwarber, center fielder Jason Heyward and right fielder Ben Zobrist all made exceptional plays behind him that turned most of the Cardinals’ few hard-hit balls into outs. He also benefitted from a Cardinal game plan that couldn’t seem to figure out whether it wanted to be aggressive or patient.

Twenty of the 30 St. Louis hitters took the first pitch against Hendricks. But Hendricks threw only six first-pitch balls the entire game. When Cardinal batters found themselves consistently behind in the count, they went into hack mode. Only eight of the team’s 30 plate appearances lasted more than three pitches, and only two went more than five pitches.

Of the 27 pitches Cardinal batters actually put into play, only seven caught a significant portion of the plate.

It’s also possible that Kyle Hendricks benefitted from the after-effects of the Cardinals’ travel schedule. St. Louis had been scheduled to play a Thursday afternoon game in Washington, but a rainstorm delayed the start of that game until Thursday night, and it didn’t actually end until around 11 p.m. Washington time. That ensured that the Cardinals wouldn’t arrive at their Chicago hotel until the wee hours of Friday morning,  less than 12 hours before first pitch.