BALTIMORE — Hunter Bigge’s cheering section became impossible to miss among the orange and black crowd at Camden Yards.
Seated in Section 31 behind home plate, a group of nearly 30 family and friends, including his parents Matt and Heidi, anxiously watched Bigge run in from the visitors bullpen Tuesday night for the bottom of the ninth inning, their cheers echoing in an otherwise largely quiet ballpark with the Chicago Cubs blowing out the Baltimore Orioles.
Bigge was so zoned in, though, he didn’t hear anything as he reached the mound. He dazzled in his major-league debut, throwing a perfect ninth inning that featured his first strikeout by freezing Ryan O’Hearn with a 100 mph fastball. Bigge gave his parents the ball after the game.
His dad, Mike, started to well up when reflecting on his son’s first outing.
“The amount of pride and joy when you see your child do something that they’ve been dreaming of for over two decades … it’s just goosebumps,” he told the Tribune. “We’re just insanely proud. We haven’t really stopped crying since Saturday afternoon when he got the phone call.”
In the hours and days following the brightest moment of his professional baseball career, Bigge, 26, still struggled to articulate his rollercoaster journey from Harvard to the Cubs.
“All this has been the weirdest, craziest three days of my life, and it all still feels like that,” Bigge told the Tribune Wednesday. “But I think being able to pitch Tuesday night reminded me that I’m still playing the same game I was playing my whole life. So I definitely just feel a little bit more settled after getting into the game.”
A 12th-round pick of the Cubs in 2019, Bigge methodically worked his way through the minors to reach Triple-A Iowa for the first time last year. But after 5 ½ weeks, with an 8.71 ERA and 13 walks in 10 ⅓ innings and inconsistent outings, the Cubs sent Bigge back to Double-A Tennessee where he finished the season.
It became a turning point in Bigge’s journey. He had lost confidence and started tweaking things at Iowa, lacking conviction in his pitches. Heading into the offseason, Bigge focused a lot on the mental side of the game: being in tune with his breath and mindful in the moment.
“I was really impressed with how calm he seemed,” his mom, Heidi, said. “He’s been working on the mental part and it showed Tuesday night. I mean, this is the largest crowd he’s ever pitched in front of. It was a big moment, it was a big day and he held it together. He’s so resilient mentally and I think that’s just a testament to him.”
Bigge relied on the mental work he put in during the offseason before making his debut. While warming up in the bullpen Tuesday, hyped up and sweaty in the humid, muggy weather, he struggled to throw strikes and knew that couldn’t happen once he entered the game. Bigge refocused, relying on the breathwork he had developed.
“Command has always been mental, when I feel confident in my stuff and feel confident that I can throw every pitch as hard as I can and not really care where it goes, it’s more likely to go where I wanted to go,” he said. “I’ve always been able to strike people out, but it’s staying in the zone and being competitive.”
Bigge’s triple-digit fastball understandably garners a lot of attention, but his four-pitch mix — four-seamer, curveball, slider and sweeper — gives the right-hander options and changes the hitters’ eye level. He loves throwing his slider, a pitch he started relying on more when he arrived at Double A in 2022. Its effectiveness has allowed Bigge to avoid being so fastball dominant, knowing he can throw his slider in any count. The Cubs helped him develop a sweeper a few years ago, which has helped him against righties by adding more horizontal movement to his repertoire.
Touching 100 mph certainly adds another electric element to Bigge’s great fastball. He credited offseason mobility work with a trainer in Arizona and learning how to use his strength and power to throw the ball harder. Bigge hit 100 mph for the first time June 15 in Columbus, Ohio, with his dad in the stands, though he initially didn’t believe the number when he saw it on the scoreboard.
Mike Bigge was seated next to Cubs prospect Owen Caissie’s dad, who asked if Hunter had hit 100 mph before when the number appeared.
“I couldn’t speak, I just shook my head,” Mike said. “But it’s something he’s been wanting to do for a while and he’s flirted with it a lot over the years and he finally got it.”
A football injury prevented Bigge from playing his senior year at Los Gatos High School in California, so he instead lettered in swimming. When Bigge committed to play baseball and major in physics at Harvard as a two-way player, a path to the big leagues and a pro career wasn’t at the forefront of his long-term plans.
But his performance during summer ball in the Northwoods League in 2018 quickly put him on scouts’ radar. With his appearance Tuesday, Bigge is only the fifth player drafted out of Harvard to reach MLB since 1980.
“That’s when the dream became more concrete,” Bigge said.
An oblique injury he sustained in spring training prevented Bigge from joining Triple A until early June. He quickly showed he was ready for the next level by missing bats and limiting walks, something Bigge will need to continue to show Cubs manager Craig Counsell to earn opportunities out of the bullpen.
Bigge knows consistently throwing strikes has been an issue at times during his minor-league career, but as he proved against one of baseball’s best lineups Tuesday, he possesses big-league stuff that could help the Cubs over the final 2 ½ months.
“It’s been really hard, it’s been really fun at times, it’s been a long journey,” Bigge said. “There’s been some really high highs and really low lows along the way and the past few years, I’ve started to learn to just enjoy the experience more and just be grateful for every day that I get to play baseball.”
