Kyle Hendricks had taken the walk from the Cubs dugout to the bullpen under the left field bleachers countless times — to warm up before a start, to watch another starter prep for his outing or to put in some work in between outings.

He had rarely taken that walk like he did Tuesday.

As the Cubs relievers made the trek from the dugout to the left field bullpen to take their place for the game, Hendricks joined them for the trip.

The 34-year-old with 254 career games under his belt walked alongside Héctor Neris before Tuesday night’s first pitch, preparing to set up in his new home: the Cubs bullpen. The last member of the 2016 World Series champion Cubs had been moved from the rotation to the relievers group, a role basically unfamiliar to him. Of those 254 games, 253 have been starts — the lone relief appearance was a 2-inning outing on July 7, 2016, against Atlanta.

“Kyle is going to pitch out of the bullpen this time around,” manager Craig Counsell said before the series opener against Atlanta. “So, it will not be Kyle on Thursday. So, we’ll play these games and kind of figure out. Thursday, it’ll be somewhat of a bullpen game and go from there.”

To call Hendricks’ start to the season difficult would be selling it short. He has a 10.57 ERA and 1.99 WHIP in 7 starts this season. Hendricks has allowed 10 home runs in 30.2 innings — he permitted just 13 in 137 innings last season.

Counsell was clear — the move isn’t necessarily a finality; Hendricks could still make starts this season, but at least right now, his spot will be amongst the Cubs’ relief corps.

“Our pitching is precarious enough right now that [we aren’t] committing to anything long-term. We are going day by day with a lot of this right now,” Counsell said. “I think we should. And look, the goal still is to get Kyle on track and get him back in the rotation. That’s absolutely what I’d like to do, yeah.”

And Hendricks was open to the move. He was involved in the conversations with Counsell, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and the rest of the Cubs’ brass. All parties believe this could be the best pathway to get Hendricks back on track.

In moving him to the bullpen, the Cubs will control how often a team sees him, part of his issues this season. Hendricks has been decent the first time through an order — opponents are hitting .254 off him. But those numbers balloon after that — the second time through, opponents are hitting .377 and the third time through, it spikes to a whopping .667.

That’s not who he was last year — the batting average and OPS were more consistent last year:

First time through: .233 AVG/.614 OPS
Second time: .268/.737
Third time: .275/ .737

“Kyle, I think he’s had some success first time through the order,” Hoyer said.” I think after that, it’s gotten pretty dicey. And so I think this gives him a chance to work through some stuff and there’s a chance he continues that trend and has success there. But, I think there’s some signs that of success in there he’s had.

“There’s some some good things we see but obviously he hasn’t put it together yet. And he knows that and obviously he’s the ultimate pro. He understands why we’re doing it.”

Hendricks has also had issues locating. Some of his misses this year have been over the middle of the plate — somewhere he can’t be missing with his arsenal. If a pitcher with high velocity misses over the middle, they can get away with it more easily than if Hendricks, who sits around 88-89 mph on the high end, misses.

In his last start, Hendricks missed with an 80-mph changeup over the middle of the zone that Jared Triolo crushed 103 mph for a 2-run home run. It’s those types of mistakes that can’t happen — and that everyone hopes gets remedied in his bullpen stint.

Because the Cubs still need Hendricks. They’re desperate for pitching — they currently have 9 pitchers on IL, so they can’t just cut bait; they need the innings.

“He wants to do what he can to help the team,” Counsell said. “That never wavers for Kyle and he’s willing and he doesn’t have to be happy with it. But I think he still knows he’s going to do whatever he can to help Cubs win games.”