BOSTON — Shortly after the Chicago Cubs’ worst blowout loss in nearly 14 years, right-hander Hayden Wesneski was summoned to manager Craig Counsell’s office.
Wesneski learned he would be starting the next day in Sunday’s series finale against the Boston Red Sox in place of left-hander Jordan Wicks, who went on the 15-day injured list with a left forearm strain. Wesneski’s response to Counsell provided an insight into the mentality he took to the mound at Fenway Park: “My job is to get the first guy out.”
“It’s not to think about, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get five innings or six innings,’” Counsell said before the game. “It’s just get the first guy out and then move on to the next thing and I think that’s a good way to treat it. This is an opportunity to get better for growth. It’s a challenge and he’ll take it the right way and whatever happens, learn from it and try to get a little bit better.”
Wesneski, starting three days after throwing 20 pitches in 2 1/3 innings, gave the Cubs everything he had under the circumstances. The Cubs couldn’t get much going offensively until late, opening the eighth inning with back-to-back bloop singles followed by a Mike Tauchman three-run home run to center field to tie the game at 4.
The @RedSox pick up their first #Walkoff victory of the season! #SundayNightBaseball pic.twitter.com/S498Z8TXNp
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The Red Sox, though, put the first two batters on against Mark Leiter Jr. in the bottom of the ninth. With the infield playing in and runners on the corners, Dansby Swanson nearly kept the game alive with an all-out effort on Tyler O’Neill’s perfectly placed pop-up to left field. Jarren Duran wasn’t tagging up on the play, nearly halfway down the third base line as Swanson pursued the ball.
A sliding Swanson couldn’t reel in a difficult catch as the ball hit off his mitt and dropped for a 5-4 walk-off loss. The Cubs (17-11) showed some fight coming off the 17-0 loss Saturday but fell short of securing a series win.
“Obviously not very pleased,” Swanson said of the final sequence. “(A play) I feel like I make really, really consistently and just wasn’t able to make it, you know? I feel like in a way I almost overran it a little bit and caused a little bit of a late glove turn to catch it and wasn’t able to. I don’t think anybody is much more frustrated about it than me just because I don’t think Duran was tagging on that play.
“Today would have been an easy one to kind of just fold in and say we’re going to the Mets so I think that’s what our group is and what we embody.”
Wesneski’s performance and continued development over the past year carries important big-picture payoff for the Cubs. He retired the first Boston batter he faced, Duran, entirely himself, fielding a grounder and sprinting to step on first base. Wesneski went on to limit the Red Sox to two runs (one earned) on 63 pitches in four innings.
“I didn’t know how many bullets I had, I don’t think (Counsell) knew how many bullets I had,” Wesneski said. “It was one of those things where it was seriously let’s get the first guy out and then we’ll go from there. As the game progressed, just kind of the same thing.”
