ANAHEIM, Calif. — What had lined up as a casual weekend to catch up with some old friends has turned into something completely different for Los Angeles Angels right-hander Kyle Hendricks.
On Friday, the Angels named Hendricks to start Sunday’s series finale against his former club, the Chicago Cubs, after right-hander Jose Soriano missed three days this week while on paternity leave.
Soriano, who had been lined up to pitch Sunday, will be moved back to Monday’s series opener on the road against the Texas Rangers. Hendricks will be on a full four days of rest after last taking the mound Tuesday.
It was already a whirlwind of emotions for Hendricks on Friday afternoon, even before he experienced a single face-to-face encounter with any of his former teammates.
“I think it’ll be really good to have today and tomorrow, to be able to go out to the field, see the guys, catch up with everybody, and then it’ll be down to business,” Hendricks said. “That’s how it is on both sides. Obviously, we both know what we have to do on Sunday, but it’ll be for some bragging rights for sure.”
Hendricks burst onto the scene in 2014 with the Cubs when he went 7-2 with a 2.46 ERA and finished seventh in National League Rookie of the Year voting after making just 13 starts.
He was 8-7 with a 3.95 ERA over his first full season in 2015 and was even better in 2016 when he went 16-8 with an NL-best 2.13 ERA.
The best was yet to come that season as Hendricks helped lead the Cubs to the franchise’s first World Series title in 108 years. He started Game 7 of the World Series and gave up one earned run over 4⅔ innings of the eventual victory.
He might be an Orange County kid, but Hendricks’ tie to Chicago will be everlasting.
As Kyle Hendricks’ storied Cubs career ends — ‘Chicago will always be so special in my heart’ — his next chapter begins
“It’s all about the fans, it’s all about the community, the neighborhoods around it,” Hendricks said. “That’s what you’re going out and playing for. … The perspective was given to us by the front office and people that have been around for a long time of what it would mean to win in a city like that.
“We really grasped that concept, ran with it, and they weren’t wrong.”
So what about the idea that players such as Hendricks never will have to pay for a drink in Chicago ever again, at least on the North Side?
“You know, in some ways, you’re going to buy one here and there, of course, but I would say for the most part, if you get recognized and seen you’re not paying,” Hendricks said. “That is a nice little perk.”
At 6-8 with a 4.93 ERA in 24 starts this season, Hendricks is having something of a bounce-back year after he struggled with the Cubs in 2024. He has also been a steadying influence in the clubhouse for some of the team’s young pitchers.
“It’s really nice to watch, because he’s very humble in his accomplishments,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “All the while, he can give people what he’s learned from an experience component. And I say this a lot, he’s more of a teacher than a teller, but I think the guys really respond to that.”
Once a Cub, always a Cub. So it came as no surprise that one of his best outings in the second half came on Aug. 2, when he allowed one run over five innings against the White Sox, the Cubs’ hated crosstown rival.
Hendricks admitted that the passion of Chicago sports fans gets in your blood.
“Yeah, that’s basically the only way you can put it, is it’s just different,” Hendricks said. “It’s so unique. It’s so special. Something with the ballpark, just where it’s situated, you know, just in the neighborhoods right there, everything kind of emanates from that.”
