Ramírez won over Counsell, teammates on road to Chicago

This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- Pedro Ramírez walked into the Cubs’ clubhouse on Sunday morning and headed over to the locker belonging to Nico Hoerner. With Major League coach Jonathan Mota there to help with any language gaps, Ramírez asked the veteran second baseman a few questions, going over the plan for pregame work.

If Ramírez was nervous about the day ahead -- being in a Major League starting lineup for the first time -- the rookie did not show it. The 22-year-old carried that same confidence with him across the practice fields, inside the cage and around the clubhouse during Spring Training, impressing the team’s veterans in the process.

That said, Ramírez is not immune to the rookie jitters. They were there for his first plate appearance as a big leaguer on Saturday.

“I was a little nervous,” Ramírez said via team translator Fredy Quevedo Jr. “There’s a difference. A lot more people attend a big league game, so the people, the stadium, I was a bit nervous in that first at-bat. But I’m glad that it happened.”

With that first-pitch groundout in the eighth inning on Saturday out of the way, Ramírez could let out a deep breath and focus on what got him to Chicago in the first place. In the second inning on Sunday, he sent a pitch from Astros righty Peter Lambert bouncing into the right-center gap for an RBI double, checking off a couple big league firsts.

Ramírez then hustled to third on a sacrifice fly to center off the bat of Pete Crow-Armstrong and soon, he scored via a single by Hoerner.

That mirrored the production early on this year from the switch-hitting Ramírez, who has soared to No. 2 on Pipeline’s Top 30 list for the Cubs and No. 85 overall on the Top 100 list. In 43 games for Triple-A Iowa this year, the infielder turned in a .312/.395/.547 slash line with nine homers, 11 doubles, one triple, 40 RBIs, 19 stolen bases and a 16.3% strikeout rate, compared to a 10.7% walk rate.

Ramírez has always been lauded for his bat-to-ball skills, but the jump in power has turned heads. It stood out in the spring, when he hit .367 with a .633 slugging percentage in 15 games for the Cubs, who added the infielder to the 40-man roster over the winter. And so far, it has carried into the season after Ramírez posted near-identical slash lines in '24 (.284/.348/.381 with High-A South Bend) and '25 (.280/.346/.386 with Double-A Knoxville).

“I never changed my swing,” Ramírez said. “We were just studying some things that I was doing with my swing -- like the point of contact.”

For Sunday’s game, Ramírez got the start at second base, while Hoerner shifted to shortstop to offer Dansby Swanson a day off. The Cubs are not likely to give Ramírez a lot of starts -- he was called up on Friday to provide a versatile option off the bench with Matt Shaw (back) landing on the 10-day injured list -- but this is a chance to get the rookie important experience.

“We just want to lay a good foundation for Pedro -- that’s the most important thing,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “I think he can get a lot of feedback from the day to day, the preparation, how it differs from Spring Training, which it just does. And so, he’ll get a real good head start on that.”

Ramírez certainly showed the Cubs something during the spring. On multiple occasions, Counsell has pointed to how veteran players around the team raved to the manager about how the rookie conducted himself during workouts and behind the scenes.

“We talk about foundation,” Counsell said, “he’s built with a solid foundation and I mean just all-around as a person. The guys recognized that in Spring Training. That’s probably what’s recognized as much as anything.”

Ramírez was thrilled to hear that he was making that kind of impression.

“I think that really speaks to the work ethic, the humility,” Ramírez said. “Every time I go into any place, any room, I always try to just be a good person, do the things that I do, do the little things right. I’m really happy that they’re saying those things about me.”

And Ramírez was happy to wake up to a phone call on Thursday night that he was getting the call to Chicago. After that surreal chat with Triple-A Iowa manager Marty Pevey, the infielder promptly called his mom, Niurka, and shared the news.

“She’s the one I would call in a situation like this,” Ramírez said. “With the call being unexpected, it was very exciting.”