Ten hours after a career-worst outing, Chicago Cubs closer Ryan Pressly was back at Wrigley Field looking to get to work.
Pressly surrendered nine runs, including a career-high eight earned runs, in the 11th inning of the Cubs’ 14-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night and in the process became the eighth reliever in Major League Baseball history to face at least eight batters without recording an out.
The nine runs the Cubs allowed in the 11th were the most they’ve given up in a single extra inning in franchise history, according to team historian Ed Hartig.
“I mean, I thought I executed my pitches really well, wasn’t really leaving anything over the middle part of the plate,” Pressly said afterward. “I just didn’t get my job done. I was the only one tonight that didn’t do my job.
“It’s tough, it sucks, but I’ve got to get ready to go tomorrow.”
Pressly arrived at Wrigley at 8 a.m. Wednesday, ready to do dry work in the bullpen and eager to move forward.
“As a coach, you want to be around those guys that want to continue to try to get better and are going to do whatever they have to do to do what’s best for them and for the team,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “And for him to take that rough night last night — he’s like, ‘I didn’t sleep anyway, let’s get to work’ — and as a coach, that’s a cool place to be.
“He has been in places in the past where he struggled and then gone on amazing runs, and he’s capable of doing it again.”
While Pressly’s outing was historically awful, it came after 10 consecutive scoreless appearances. But even that run of shutout innings doesn’t fully represent his season. The 36-year-old veteran’s underlying numbers are concerning beyond Tuesday’s performance.
Photos: Chicago Cubs lose 14-5 after giving up 9 hits in the 11th inning
Pitchers need to be able to generate whiffs in high-leverage spots, especially after getting to two strikes. Pressly has struggled to tap into that through the first six weeks of the season. His 8.1% strikeout rate is the second-worst among 190 qualified big-league relievers and down from 23.8% in 2024 with the Houston Astros — which had been the lowest of his career since 2016 with the Minnesota Twins.
Compounding the lack of strikeouts are a 12.9% walk rate and a whopping 56.3% hard-hit rate, up more than 15% from a year ago. When evaluating Pressly’s lack of whiffs and strikeouts — only five in 13 innings — Hottovy thinks the right-hander’s stuff might not be deceptive enough to hitters, allowing them to pick up what he’s throwing more easily.
“You could have good pitch data, but I do believe that there are some mechanical things that the hitters are seeing the ball a little early,” Hottovy said. “And when you can have good pitch data, good velocity, but if the hitter sees it a tick early, whether it’s subconscious or they’re actually picking it up, it just gives them more time.
“He understands what he’s working on mechanically. Now that the knee’s feeling better to get back to being a linear feeling toward the plate, I think it’s going to help with some of the deception.”
More fastballs up in the zone would help too, Hottovy said. If all of Pressly’s pitches are in one area of the zone, it can lead to more contact and foul balls rather than swings and misses, even if his command is good.
“When you understand you’re not getting swing and miss, some guys try to get swing and miss from the first pitch,” Hottovy said, “which I would say all the time, swing and miss matters with two strikes more than anything. So it’s just him understanding what he’s trying to accomplish early in the count, get ahead and then be able to execute his fastball up that I think will buy him some more room.”
Despite the concerning numbers, other key metrics such as Pressly’s fastball velocity and pitch-movement profiles are essentially the same as in 2024. Hottovy compared Pressly to former Cubs lefty Jon Lester, two pitchers he both played with and coached and who experienced a lot of success in the majors. But both reached a point in their careers when it became time to work on things they might not have had to in the past, when they were rolling and synced up.
Pressly is at that point.
“Ryan is in a place where he’s feeling good health-wise, and now he’s ready to be able to put the work in that he knows he needs to do to be better,” Hottovy said.
Pressly and the Cubs aren’t pinning Tuesday’s disastrous outing on the right knee he had drained April 22 to relieve swelling and discomfort. Pressly said after the outing his body felt great and the knee isn’t a problem, and Hottovy reiterated that Wednesday morning.
“That always happens when you deal with lower-body minor injuries,” Hottovy said. “Mechanics, you form bad habits, and so it’s kind of like, OK, I feel good now, now I’ve got to work back through all the habits that I was kind of compensating for.
“He’s feeling great with the lower body now. It’s just about the getting the reps consistently.”
Regular game action will be part of the process of getting Pressly on track. Hottovy believes Pressly is close to being locked in with his delivery, describing the needed mechanical changes as minor adjustments relating to a timing issue versus a problem with his movement pattern.
Asked whether Pressly could have been tipping his pitches, Hottovy said no and that it’s something the Cubs are always working to stay on top of to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“He’s been in organizations in the past that have been on top of the tipping stuff,” Hottovy quipped, cheekily adding, “I’m talking about the Twins.”
Pressly tends to rely on off-speed stuff down in the zone, which isn’t a secret to hitters. Combating that through better deception and utilizing his full five-pitch repertoire will be an important combination.
Four days off between his last two outings and pitching just twice since April 27 because of the knee ailment wasn’t ideal. Hottovy estimated Pressly missed a week of consistent work due to the knee.
The Cubs plan to give Pressly more consistent work, even if that means using him in non-save situations or pregame work in the bullpen. Porter Hodge’s experience gives the Cubs another closer option to balance Pressly’s workload.
Those limited opportunities over the past week due to how games played out affected Pressly’s usage. Had he not pitched the 11th Tuesday, he would have gone into Wednesday’s game at some point, regardless of the score, given the number of days between appearances plus a day off Thursday.
“There’s going to be opportunities where it’s like, hey, if you haven’t thrown a couple days, we need to get your work day in,” Hottovy said. “It might not be a high-leverage situation, but we need to get the reps because he’s going to be better down the road by pitching more, and we’ve got to figure out how to navigate that in a series.
“More exposure for him right now is going to be good.”
