- [Announcer 1] Hello. Hello.
Good morning, everybody.
Happy Opening Day.
Raise your hand if this is your first Opening Day.
Welcome.
- [Male 1] Let's go, Cubbies.
Happy Opening Day, baby.
Let's go.
- [Male 2] Okay.
All right.
- [Announcer 2] Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and welcome to Opening Day
baseball at the federal landmark Wrigley Field.
- [Male 3] Are you ready?
Are you excited?
- [Hayden] It is so cool.
- Soak it in today. - It is.
- Take it all in.
- Basically, I'm just trying to annoy Drew Smyly the whole day.
- Let's meet your 2023 Chicago Cubs.
Number 19, Hayden Wesneski.
♪ [music] ♪
- [Male 4] Keep going.
No way.
- [Singer] ♪ ... and the home of the brave. ♪
- Whoo! Well done, baby.
- Big crowd on hand.
It's sunny.
It's chilly.
It's Opening Day.
- [Announcer 2] Eight strikeouts and six shutout innings from Marcus Stroman.
- Base hit to right field.
Cubs take the lead.
Cubs win.
Sing and dance people.
What a day at the ballpark.
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- [Hayden] Yeah, the bullpen went well.
Working on spinning the ball and the fastballs.
The fastball lines.
- [Male 5] And you sleeping good?
- Yes.
I've been sleeping good.
Except for those day games.
They do hurt a little bit sometimes, especially when you got three in a row, but...
- I'll tell you this.
I enjoy your call.
I wait for it.
- Well, good.
I'll talk baseball a lot with my dad.
Probably more than most dads do.
But that's just something we have in common.
I'm kind of paying him back now.
It's really good for him and my mom.
They've wore it for a while.
And so, for them to finally get to see this, they put in the work just as much as I did, you know?
- Hello [crosstalk] - [Jaycie] Hi.
It's been very interesting.
Seeing him from minor leagues with the Yankees and then getting traded.
- Getting traded was like, oh, it was hard on me.
It was weird.
But then, like, the debut, too.
Like, it was really cool.
- Coming up, the newest Cub, the right-hander, Hayden Wesneski.
- This is by far the most important moment of his baseball life.
- Yeah, you could make a case for just life in general.
- Yeah.
- Right.
- I would say making the big leagues made everything in my life change a little bit more.
- Wesneski high leg kick and the pitch swing and a miss.
Strike three.
Welcome to the Major Leagues.
- Last year there was a lot of new faces.
It's like, "Okay, you're just another guy that came up."
But the way I pitched last year at the end of the year, it's like, "Oh, he has a chance to stay."
- Ballgame.
Cubs win.
What a debut for Hayden Wesneski.
- I just feel like I'm starting to belong a little bit more, and I feel like I'm a part of the long-term plan.
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- Oh, man, this is going to be a battle.
Oh, [bleep]. Didn't hit it.
Just in case you were wondering.
- Talk about Hayden Wesneski as young as he is, he's exhibiting
that confidence well beyond his years.
- [Male 6] I'll just tell you right now, he'll be the best fifth starter in all of baseball when
this year is said and done.
- The mindset for spring training was to make the team.
Hi, Miss Lisa.
- [Lisa] Hi there, how are you?
- Good. Not so bad.
How was your day?
- Good.
- And now, it's a totally different mindset.
We're here to win.
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A lot's on the line and things matter a little bit more.
And if we don't win, we're going to be a little upset about it, right?
We got all these guys that can play.
So, for somebody like me, what does that mean?
Like, they're not going to keep me up just to get me reps.
It's basically that I have to come in and try to produce and try to win.
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- Tommy.
- [Tommy] Just wanted to do a quick refresher of the
game going through some at-bats, some thought process.
- I think the biggest thing that I appreciate about Tommy is he cares.
Even if I suck today, Tommy's going to tell me that I sucked, and he's going to figure out we're
going to figure out together what, we got to do and how much we got to do to get better.
- Those were the three at-bats.
The three to me that I felt like we could learn something from in terms of how we got to two
strikes and then how we put guys away.
- I felt like the whole game I was ahead, and then like they would work me back all the way because
I don't feel like I had my out pitch.
In a short time, he understands how I tick, and that's something that's not very easy to figure
out about a person.
- I just want to keep honing in on that, making sure that we are consistent arm
slot, consistent head position, and driving that ball.
- I feel like we're part of this together, part of this journey of trying to win.
- Love it.
Okay, perfect, go.
- So, Hayden Wesneski will begin the 2023 season in the Cubs starting rotation, a spot for him.
It opened up after it was announced that Kyle Hendrick would miss time as he recovers from
a shoulder tear, an injury that kept him sidelined for the final three months of the 2022 season.
- Let's hope that during his time away he can return to full strength and be as effective as he ever was.
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- [Kyle] I didn't touch a baseball for five months, which had never happened in my life.
That's been the goal.
Just getting back to who I am.
Being who I am as a pitcher again.
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- It was something physical that you felt first.
MRIs showed a capsular tear.
It really prevented me from getting extended through the baseball.
Things just didn't have good life to it.
I think we reached a point where something needed to change.
And what was that going to be?
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- [Jeremy] Slow and steady.
- Okay.
- I want to see slow and steady.
- Control.
- [Logan] One of the things the pitching departments looked at was his power
mechanics during his good years in the past compared to this past year when he
had the shoulder injury.
- Once I got my hand out of my glove, it was getting longer and longer back here.
So, turning over from there to there is that's where we [crosstalk] saw a big change.
- Everyone knows he had shoulder issues.
The stronger we can make everything else, the less that shoulder has to work and the better
positions we're putting him in.
- It's power.
Power and velo.
- [Marty] You look good.
- I'm trying.
Not as good as you.
- No, you look great.
You're starting to look like a swimmer.
- Yeah, okay.
- Wide shoulders.
- Well, they've had me in the pool.
He's very narrow in the [crosstalk]. - You know, part of the rehab.
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- I've relied on a lot of people, a lot of information from them of what I'm going
to need to do for the rest of my career, and to prolong it as long as I can.
- Whoa.
18.
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- If this would have happened, you know, early in my career, at a certain point,
I may not have been ready in the type of way that I am now to know what I need to change and be
willing to change.
As a young player, sometimes you are a little stubborn and you know what made you
successful to get you there and you hold on to that for a little while.
I'm just excited to be at this point in my career where I am confident and know who I am,
but I'm also willing to see the other side and know what needs to be done to take advantage of this
opportunity that I have.
I think I'm going to start spinning it soon.
Playing catch with them and getting that.
That's my focus is be as good as I can be as late in the year as possible.
Super disappointing to not be there, obviously to start the journey with your guys
and your teammates.
But at the end of the day, hopefully, we're making a push into October this year.
I have a really good feel with the group that we got.
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- I don't know what's going to come of this year like nobody knows.
But this is a really fun group to be around, and I think fans are going to love kind of watching this
team play throughout the season.
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- We're in the 10th tied at two.
Nico has never had a walk-off hit.
♪ [music] ♪
- Lifted into right. Nico walks it off!
- [Nico] I came in the locker room and Yan just put it on my head.
And, I think we've got some sort of celebratory hat I guess I've been assigned to so...
- Really feel a belief within the group that anybody can come through in the moment and they root
for each other.
- And the pitch...
A swing and a drive.
Left-center field.
It's got a chance.
Grand slam!
Grand slam Nelson Velazquez.
Can you believe it?
- Nice job.
Way to go.
- Way to go. - Way to go.
Nice job.
Way to go. Way to go. [crosstalk].
- Atta boy Neeks.
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- Nelson, man, you're the new sheriff.
- Patrick Wisdom, the Cubs have blown it open.
- Here's the pitch.
Called, strike three.
- It's a different energy that locker room definitely feels.
We're here to win.
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