Hayden Wesneski Was Bad, But Deserved a Little Better

Chicago Cubs rookie starting pitcher Hayden Wesneski was bad Tuesday night against the Seattle Mariners. There is no denying that. The righty only recorded four outs, he walked four batters, did not strike out anyone and was ultimately charged with seven runs. Now, he’s not going to make any excuses over his poor performance, but I will.

I mean, again, Wesneski wasn’t good. He only generated five whiffs and the Mariners were jumping on every hittable pitch he threw. However, his final line doesn’t tell the entire story from Tuesday night. Wesneski deserved a little better results wise.

First, the two-run home run he gave up in the first inning to Eugenio Suárez was perfectly hit into the wind that was blowing straight out of Wrigley Field. This was only a home run in four of 30 MLB ballparks.

But hey, he’s playing for the Cubs and he’ll be pitching plenty of games under these conditions, so gotta learn and limit the damage.

As you’ll notice on the box score, Wesneski allowed seven runs, but only two were earned because of two errors in the second inning. Trey Mancini started at first base and he couldn’t cleanly field a smash hit to him by Tommy La Stella to begin the second. Then, this one was really annoying because you do expect Dansby Swanson to make every play at shortstop, but what looked like a double play ball off the bat of Julio Rodríguez ended up in a throwing error that loaded the bases with nobody out.

So, that was definitely frustrating and certainly a play you expect to get at least one out on.

Anyway, like I already mentioned, Wesneski doesn’t and shouldn’t get a pass either. The Mariners were not getting fooled at all and once again the right-hander’s best pitch, his slider, was off. The command wasn’t good, as Wesneski kept missing his spots and unfortunately that led to a lot of missed strike calls.

Don’t me wrong, Wesneski not hitting his target consistently shouldn’t be an excuse for an umpire being bad either and Adrian Johnson was really bad Tuesday night calling balls and strikes. Looking at Wesneski’s pitch chart, you could seven pitches in the strike zone that were called balls.

Tough night on the mound for Wesneski, but even in his season debut against the Cincinnati Reds he didn’t look sharp.

At this point, you hope it’s simply an issue with Wesneski’s mechanics. Seeing that his velocity is actually up a bit this year, you wouldn’t think there’s a physical problem. Also, the numbers suggest that his fastball looks different than it did in 2022, which again could mean Wesneski just has to make a tweak in his throwing motion.

The Cubs begin a six-game road trip on Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers. So, Wesneski’s next start should come against the Oakland A’s next week. Let’s hope that by then, the coaching staff and Wesneski have figured out and corrected the issues leading to his subpar starts so far in 2023.