Hendriks tossed a scoreless seventh inning in Sunday's 5-1 Bay Bridge Series exhibition loss to the Giants, lowering his spring ERA to 5.14.
Granted, that figure is still cringe-worthy, but also deceptive in a couple of different ways. For starters, there's naturally the caveat about small spring samples, as Hendriks has generated the number over a modest seven innings across eight appearances. Moreover, the bulk of the damage came early, as he yielded three of the four earned runs he's given up over his first two appearances. Hendriks has bounced back to post five scoreless efforts in six subsequent trips to the mound, looking more like the reliever that settled in after a rough start last season and finished with an impressive 78 whiffs over 64 innings across 70 appearances. Hendriks projects for another robust workload in 2018, and the fact he's been reasonably effective this spring at staying away from the home-run ball that's often plagued him throughout his career is a cautiously optimistic sign as well.