Major League Baseball

Cubs deliver for the home crowd, top Brewers on Opening Day

Updated Apr. 8, 2022 3:07 a.m. ET

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

The 2022 Cubs are sailing off into the unknown.

For the past half-decade, the home fans showed up to Opening Day at Wrigley Field with a clear understanding of the season to come: The Cubs would, at the very least, compete.

Every member of the North Side faithful who filed into the Friendly Confines the first week of April knew the players they were paying to see. But while those names — Báez, Bryant, Schwarber, Rizzo — still grace the backs of jerseys all around the friendly confines, the players themselves wear different laundry now.

It’s a new era of Cubs baseball — that much is clear. The next good Cubs team could be the current one, or it could be six years away. Nobody knows. It's that uncertainty that feels so foreign as, for the first time since 2014, Cubs fans enter a new campaign with relatively subdued expectations.

But none of that mattered Thursday afternoon at Wrigley Field. A buzz filled the stands with the irrational hope that reemerges like a groundhog every spring. Perhaps the dog days of summer will take their toll on this inexperienced team before long, but that’s for the future to decide.

Because at this very moment, the Chicago Cubs are 1-0 after a delightfully watchable 5-4 Opening Day victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Despite all the turnover on Chicago’s roster — only four players on the 2022 Opening Day squad were on the roster a year ago — it was two of the team’s most familiar faces who carried the day: Kyle Hendricks and Ian Happ.

Hendricks was phenomenal in his third career Opening Day start for the Cubs, striking out seven in 5 1/3 innings with just a single earned run to his name. In fact, "The Professor" induced the third-most swing-and-misses of his career (17) and the most in a single start since August 2017. Hendricks’ changeup was devastating all afternoon, and he seemed to know it, as he threw the pitch a whopping 40% of the time, well up from his 27% usage rate last season.

As is always the case with the Cubs’ longest-tenured pitcher, it was all about command, not velocity. In 2021, Hendricks had the slowest average fastball among qualified MLB starters, at 87.3 mph. Somehow, that number was even lower on Thursday.

He reached back and touched 88 once, but for the most part, Hendricks sat around 86.5. Is that sustainable over the course of the season? Probably not, and his abysmal numbers from 2021 show it, but against Milwaukee, the changeup was nasty enough to make up for the not-so-hot heater.

The Brewers opened the scoring in the fourth on an RBI groundout from Lorenzo Cain to net the season’s first run, but the Cubs tied it in the fifth on a sac fly from Patrick Wisdom before nine-hole hitter Nico Hoerner ripped a two-run homer off reigning NL Cy Young Corbin Burnes to put Chicago up 3-1.

Milwaukee battled back to knot things at three on a double from Willy Adames and a sac fly from Christian Yelich in the top of the seventh. But in the bottom half, Cubs left fielder and Opening Day world-beater Ian Happ delivered with a timely, two-out, two-run double into the right-center gap.

Happ was 3-for-4 on the day with a pair of doubles. And while it feels like he has been in Chicago forever, it’s important to remember that Happ wasn’t on the ‘16 team that won the World Series, broke the curse, cured the common cold, rebuilt the pyramids and changed Chicago forever.

This gent debuted in 2017. His fingers have no rings.

Also Thursday, Seiya Suzuki, the team’s big-money acquisition of the winter, collected his first career MLB hit in the bottom of the fifth, lacing a single through the hole on the left side. The buzz around Suzuki was palpable, with fans rising to their feet and cheering whenever he came to the plate.

Most likely, this is not a team equipped to win the 2022 World Series. There are no MVP candidates in sight, no Cy Young hopefuls hiding beneath the surface.

But Opening Day highlighted that there’s something there. The Cubs have dudes worth watching and worth caring about, even if October baseball is a pipe dream this season.

At least for an afternoon, the limitless potential of a new season was warm enough for the 35,112 who braved a chilly Chicago day to drink some beers, bask in the return of baseball and sing "Go Cubs Go" after a solid showing from their beloved club.

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.