- [Man] This is a Maddux and it's like...
Did you know about that beforehand? - [Kyle] I had heard about it, I think,
because other guys had maybe thrown one, you know, so I had seen come up on
Twitter, or whatever it happens to be. I've never really thought about,
like, a goal of trying to throw one. It's all about sequencing
pitches and how you set it up. ♪ [music] ♪ I was walking in the ballpark actually, and
a couple of fans said they had some dinner reservations that night that they had to get to. So you're trying to go a complete game and throw as
few pitches possible, but it gets so convoluted and so complicated, especially with the Cardinals. - [Announcer] The first meeting of the year
between the Cubs and Cardinals, the tall, likable righthander, Kyle Hendricks. It's his 15th career start against the Cards. - [Tommy] When you watch a game, you know
there's things that go on behind the scenes. For me, fortunately, in the position
I'm in, it's the most fun part of it. When the game planning happens, you know,
you're taking obviously the pitcher's strength, what Kyle does well. And then you're taking the approach, like, what's
our game plan specifically for those hitters? - [Man] It takes me and Tommy and Brad Mills, about
six or seven hours to put together a full report for each series. Kyle takes our information, and he preps as
well as any pitcher you're ever going to meet. - It's a breakdown of every hitter
individually throughout the lineup. I sit down at the computer, I start with
the first hitter and I break down, okay, what pitches and what options you're
going to have to a certain hitter? Whether it's early in the count,
late in the count, or middle counts. ♪ [music] ♪ And then I'll go to the video and I'll see
what the swings actually look like visually. Then I pretty much memorize exactly
what options I have to each guy. - If you go overly curveball on him,
expect a swing, he doesn't really take it. And then we sit down and we have our attack plan. - Yeah, if I get to two strikes, there
is a swing and miss. - It's there. - [Man] There is so much that goes into those game
plans, but it always goes to the pitcher to be able to execute. - We just try to say, "All right, let's start
with the first pitch of the game and let's go out and attack and see what
happens." - And that's it. - Boom. - [Announcer] Carpenter, he hit eight
homers against Cubs' pitching last year. - Carpenter, when I first came up, he killed me. ♪ [music] ♪ He was one of the toughest at-bats for me,
and so whenever I face the Cardinals now, he's now hitting lead-off for him. When you're facing a team that you have a lot of
history against, they know how you're basically going to try to attack them, and we know that as well. And he doesn't swing it a lot
of first pitches really ever. ♪ [music] ♪ - We are underway. A swing and a miss for strike one. - It just was, like, whoa, Carpenter, he
pretty much takes almost every first pitch and especially leading off. - Matt Carpenter, for the majority of his career,
has been one of the lowest first-pitch swinging guys in all of baseball. So for them to kind of tip their hand, I guess
a little bit, was something we noticed. - Swing and a miss. Change up. Carpenter out in front, down he goes. - After Carpenter's swing at
the first pitch of the game. - Here is Paul Goldschmidt. - Goldie taking, that kind of brought
my alertness back down a little bit. - He bounces one slowly to the left
side, and that's out number two. - And then DeJong. - Two down, nobody on, it brings up Paul Dejong. - He is patient, for the most
part, and especially against me. I would get ahead of him just
with a lot of easy fastballs. Then he gets really aggressive,
so you can expand off the plate. But we really wanted to establish
the inner part of the zone with him. I had two outs and nobody on. I can afford to fall behind 1-0. ♪ [music] ♪ - Hendricks is sharp, 1, 2, 3, after a half. - I think we were even trying to throw a ball in there. It brings up all the flags and that's why we come in
the dugout, and it was the first thing we talked about. - [Willson] I've been there behind the play long enough
against Saint Louis that I know when they're aggressive and they're patient. Well, that day, they came out of the gate, like,
swinging and swinging and swinging and they were just looking to hit the fast one. - They're doing their homework too. All right, so they're game-planning for Kyle. Kyle had had a few games that were
rough, you know, before going into this, and the success that those teams had
was jumping on stuff early in the game. - A lot of teams don't want to get to his
changeup, they want to avoid his best pitch. And in doing that, they're going to swing early. - They come in and Willie's,
like, "Hey, they're swinging." And I'm, like, "I get you, we're going to use it." - You want them to swing. - And Schwarber makes the catch. - If they're swinging and being aggressive,
you don't want to take that away from them. - Martinez takes a wild swing and a miss. - Let's use their aggressiveness against them. - Here's the next offering. Zobrist has room, makes the catch. Three up, three down. Hendricks
two perfect innings in the book. - When you see these types of games,
usually the strike zone is big. The umpire is giving you some help. This isn't the case in this game, and
that's what makes this so astounding. He pitches to contact, to re-contact. He tunnels the ball so well that you think
you're swinging at a pitch in a certain zone. And then next thing you know, it's changed
lanes on you, and all of a sudden, you're getting blown up. - Pitch tunneling is basically the effect that
a hitter sees on two comparative pitches. The longer those two pitches can stay in the same
trajectory in that same path toward the plate, the harder it is for me to differentiate
what those two pitches are. And he's a master at that, for sure. - Kyle's able to make all versions of his fastball
and all versions of his changeup look alike coming out of his hand. So they're coming off the same line. And then as you see the ball get closer to
home plate, they all start doing different things. The four-seamer just plays straight,
his actually has a little bit of cut. And the two-seamers go in the
opposite direction or going downward. And then on top of that, you have
the three versions of his changeup, I mean that no one else has. He throws a cut change up. He throws a faded change up. And he'll throw a straight changeup that goes down. Those all come out of the same tunnel as well. We're talking about five pitches that all
look exactly the same coming out of his hand. That's what makes him so good. ♪ [music] ♪ - Flaherty at first, two outs, and it's Matt Carpenter. ♪ [music] ♪ - I got ahead, 0-1, on a bunt attempt. This looks like a great opportunity for me to not
waste the pitch because it's being used for something. But I'm not necessarily looking to get a strike. It's really just a visual for the hitter. ♪ [music] ♪ - If you look at the side view, it's a
straight fastball and an arcing curveball, but from the straight, when they come
out of the hand at the same trajectory and this one keeps going and
this one dives, that's tunneling. - I rely on my two-seam in changeup. But if that's all I'm throwing, then their
effectiveness is just going to go way down. So you have to pick your spots where you can throw your
other pitches, so they're not as locked in on your two best pitches when you need to go to them. Now he has the curveball in his head, it just
might make him a tick later on the fastball. ♪ [music] ♪ And then just a little bit
more out front on the changeup. - He'll head over to the bag
and get the heat from Rizzo. - He has to wait until the last second to try
and recognize, "Oh, wait, is this a heater? Or, oh, it's a changeup." That's the difference between hitting the ball right on
the sweet spot and missing by that much and having it be weak contact. - All his stuff that day is locked in and when
those things happen, this is what he can do. - Schwarber in to make the catch. - I've always been a guy that works quick. I like to keep the fielders behind me on their toes. I like the action to be moving. And for the hitters, I like them
to feel like I'm aggressive. ♪ [music] ♪ Ideally, you would love an
inning to average 12 pitches. Not that you're counting all the pitches out there, but you have a pretty good idea
around what number you might be. - Hendricks through five, has
given up one hit and no runs. - Since they had been so aggressive, we just
started getting a lot of really quick outs and quick innings. ♪ [music] ♪ - I told myself that this is an easy game. Every time that I call any pitch or any
count, anywhere, he will execute it. - Line to Descalso. - But I'm not saying he's perfect,
but he's close to perfect. - And it is time for the seventh-inning stretch. - Nothing was going to knock
him off of where he was going. This guy was locked in. - Definitely one of the most enjoyable
games I've ever been a part of. It felt like you're just sitting in a rocking chair,
sitting at the pond, you know, catching fish. - Ball, strike three. And they stand for the professor. - I knew we were getting outs quickly
and that the game plan was working. All of a sudden, I'm in the
ninth inning with 71 pitches. You're like, "Oh my gosh." At Wrigley, there haven't been many times where
I've been able to get into the ninth inning. - Kyle Hendricks on the mound,
starting the ninth inning, working on a three-hit shutout. - You start running out there,
they play your walkout music again. It's like this whole nother thing. I'm, like, "No, just don't listen.
Just forget about all this." It's just another inning. Okay? Because you know how close you are to the end. Plus, I got Goldschmidt coming up. - When I got the pitching coach job, Rizzo
came in and says, like, "Congratulations. Figure out a way to get Goldschmidt out, please." - Now Goldschmidt has .471 career on-base average
against the Cubs, is the highest of all time. His .699 slugging percentage, second-best
against the Cubs in the live-ball era. - Not only is he so talented physically
in what he can do and how strong he is. But mentally, I know he puts in so much video work. He knows what I'm going to be throwing him. So now it's just throw something
that he is not looking for. - You can't ever really quantify
just how sequencing matters. It's about putting the pieces together, almost
seeming like you're a step ahead every pitch. - At that time, he was taken
a lot of first-pitch curveballs. That was something we had in the report, for sure. Yeah, we know we can go to this if we need it. I don't think I had used it much
in the game before this at-bat. So it provided me an opportunity where,
okay, I know I can get strike one. ♪ [music] ♪ - First pitch, curveball, dips in there for a strike. - Guys have an approach. Goldy's looking for something in that count. And if he doesn't get it and what makes him so good
is he's got the ability to not swing it those pitches. Now, where can we find that strike two? ♪ [music] ♪ - When you break down hitters, they
show you how you can start them. You see the glaring holes with
two strikes that they have. But where do I go to get strike two? That's something I've always searched for. - Sometimes getting strike two in an
at-bat is the hardest strike to get. And so really trying to pitch to a foul ball has
become, like, a really good way of getting that strike two and bridging the gap. - I'm throwing a changeup middle into a right-hander
a lot of times with Kyle strictly for a foul ball. - The old one to Goldschmidt, line
foul pass third, the count is 0 and 2. - There's a changeup. He purposely throws middle in for that
purpose exactly, to get a foul ball. - When you have a guy that has a strength like
Goldy, can hit a sinker middle in, that's fine. Just give it to them. Just give it to him in a place where
he's not going to do any damage. - He swung at it thinking that's going to be a fastball
and it's a changeup and he hooks it, you know, 100 feet foul. - That's the epitome of pitching right there, right? Take a strike, swing at a ball. - Now I have him 0-2, and
really, I have any option here. - With a guy like Kyle, you might start to
think, okay, after a changeup like that, he going to come with a sinker in. And Kyle was smart enough to call
the pitch outside of the corner. - All he's seen is slow stuff. That's probably why he ends up being
late on a 87-mile an hour fastball, yeah. - And the 0-2 pitch. Swing and a miss, strike three. The fastball got him. - You're like, "Wow, how did Kyle just blow an
87-mile an hour fastball away by Goldschmidt?" Well, it's because of how
those first two pitches played. - Swing and a miss. On his 77th pitch, he gets his 26th out. - You would think you're facing
a guy throwing 95-miles an hour. And then you look and it's Kyle throwing 87. The clip makes you think, God,
this guy must be blowing. But that's the beauty of Kyle Hendricks. - Just about everybody standing at Wrigley. ♪ [music] ♪ Here's a swing and a pop-up. It's going to be a shutout for Kyle Hendricks. He's got it. Kyle Hendricks goes all the way
and shuts out the Cardinals. An 81-pitch complete game shutout for Kyle Hendricks. - They call him the professor, but it was
an artist at work here this afternoon. ♪ [music] ♪ - Everybody's seen those games, those
Maddux games and for it to be Kyle, you know, it's perfect. He's the epitome of what Maddux wanted to do. - Kyle Hendricks is a pitcher. And I still find it refreshing that
there are guys like this in baseball. ♪ [music] ♪ - It was just one of those days where everything fell
into place and everything worked and you don't get a lot of those. So really, you
need to relish those moments. ♪ [music] ♪
Really cool video. Hendricks is one of my favorites to watch. I never threw hard but was always a soft contact guy so it’s always been fun to watch Hendricks do the same to the best hitters in the world. Wish more teams would do videos like this, my only complaint is that it wasn’t longer lol.
Still my favorite pitcher to watch when he's on his game.
He's having such a weird year too because he's statistically having one of his worst years ever yet he's like 10-0 with a 2.50 ERA in his last 10 decisions. But he's also leading the league in wins.
This guy. Ugh.
(Chicago Cubs on YouTube) Kyle Hendricks breaks me