NEW YORK -- When
“Javy giving us that two-run lead early was huge,” Hendricks said. “With how they play in this home ballpark and how they pitch, getting an early lead was huge in this game.”\n\n
But, as Ross said after the win, “Kyle is the story of the day.”\n\n“Probably not the sharpest you've seen him and he doesn't even give up any runs,” Ross added. “Nice, gutsy performance by Kyle there; we needed that.”\n\nThursday’s outing gave Hendricks a 7-0 record with a 2.54 ERA over his past seven starts. It’s almost hard to believe this is the same pitcher that opened the season 1-3 with a 7.54 ERA in five April starts, but Hendricks has overcome that awful month to become the pacesetter atop the rotation for the first-place Cubs.\n\n“At the beginning of the season, my timing was off; I was late coming out of my glove, so everything was flat,” Hendricks said. “Everything was flat, it was all up in the zone, and I was leaving a lot of pitches \\[in the\\] middle. I made those adjustments that I needed to, but it's a continual process. Mentally, it's kind of calmed down, too. When you don't trust it physically, you know you don't trust your stuff, it's hard going out there mentally to commit to a pitch every time.”\n\nAfter Báez staked the Cubs to the first-inning lead, Jonathan Villar led off the bottom of the first with a double. Hendricks struck out Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso, then got Dominic Smith to line out to first base, stranding the runner at second. Billy McKinney hit a one-out double in the home half of the second, but Hendricks retired the next two batters, leaving the Mets 0-for-5 with a runner in scoring position in the first two innings.
\n\nBut it wasn’t until the fourth inning that things came close to unraveling, as Hendricks walked Alonso and Smith to start the frame.\n\n“Those two walks were terrible, but they spit on some good pitches,” Hendricks said. “I didn't really mis-execute, so it just was more of the same; just go to the next pitch, make some big pitches to get out of there.”\n\nHendricks did just that, inducing a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of James McCann, then retiring McKinney on a soft tapper that