As speculated for a couple days, infielder Tommy La Stella now has gone on the disabled list with his side issue, retroactive to last Thursday (Sahadev Sharma). Hopefully he’ll just need the next 10 days or so to get back to 100%, and he can be a quality utility man for the Cubs from there – the timing of the injury really stunk from his perspective, as he had a chance to lock down the second base job, at least for a little while.
Replacing La Stella on the roster is a guy who makes a whole lot of sense: lefty reliever Zac Rosscup.
No, you don’t usually see a pitcher replacing an infielder, but with the bullpen taxed recently, and currently using only one lefty, have a supplemental arm like Rosscup up right now is a great thing. Plus, the Cubs were essentially operating with a shortened bench anyway, so it’s not like they’re now suddenly down a positional player even though they’re up to 13 pitchers..
After Thursday’s off-day – or a couple days after that – the Cubs could elect to swap Rosscup or another reliever back out for a positional player. I leave that player to your imagination.