Kyle Schwarber has been a fixture at Wrigley Field with the Cubs pretty much since the day he walked out onto the field, shortly before his knee surgery back in April. And, for almost as long, speculation about a surprise return to the roster in time for the playoffs has also been a fixture among Cubs fans.
No, this post will not sew the seeds of further hope. Most likely probably not, anyway.
The refrain from the Cubs, and from these parts, about the Schwarber knee injury is that the hope is for a smooth recovery this year, and for Schwarber to be in a position to be full go come next Spring Training. Schwarber, himself, has not commented at length about his return, other than to discuss the recovery process, and wanting to get back as soon as he can.[adinserter block=”1″]
To be perfectly clear, that’s the gist of what he said in his latest interview with The Score, but he also left open the smallest crack through which the conspiracy theorists will undoubtedly try to climb, when he was asked if there was any chance he could return this year.
“There’s no comment on that — most likely probably not,” Schwarber told Mark Grote. “So we’re shooting for spring, but I’m going to push myself as hard as I can to come back as soon as I can. It sounds like it’s going to be spring.”
Even if Schwarber were physically in a position to start playing baseball by next month, the fact that the minor league seasons end in early September would be a problem for him to get to where he would need to be to actually help the big league Cubs. I know it’s fun to dream about a miracle Schwarber return – I get chills, and then sad, when I think about what he did in the postseason last year – but it’s just not going to be in the cards.
Thankfully, though, Schwarber says his rehab continues to go well – he’s jogging now – and everything is still going according to the plan.
Hopefully, then, he’s 100% come the Spring, and we can have a whole lot of fun discussing and debating how the Cubs will coordinate all the starts to go around their young, talented core.[adinserter block=”2″]