As has been expected for some time now, Ben Zobrist is heading to the disabled list with a sore wrist. Well, more specifically, left wrist inflammation (per multiple reports on Twitter).
He had been playing through the pain for a while now (although he was only batting from the left side of the plate for some time), but hasn’t gotten into a game since June 12, as things (presumably and progressively) worsened.
He is expected to get an MRI soon – which is obviously an enormous bummer (in the sense that the Cubs feel one is necessary) – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the worst is yet to come (MRIs can be negative, after all). Even still, wrist injuries are notorious for sapping a hitter’s power, even after they’ve returned healthy and ready to swing it. So this isn’t good news, no matter how you slice it.
The Cubs should consider themselves lucky to have a couple of solid options (Javy Baez, Ian Happ) to take over a majority of Zobrist’s innings at second while he’s on the DL.
But, in addition to those two covering when they can, Tommy La Stella is returning from Triple-A Iowa and will presumably get some time at second too. Remember, Baez has been getting plenty of time at shortstop lately and Happ has seen most of his starts in center field, so there should be plenty of room for La Stella to get into some games.
Through 102 plate appearances at Triple-A Iowa this year, La Stella has hit just .213/.265/.266, but he’s bounced up and down from the Major Leagues a couple of times now, so that’s a lot of interrupted play. Through 31 plate appearances with the big league Cubs, he’s slashed a much more inspiring .304/.484/.436 this season with a 25.8 BB%.
We’ll discuss this more soon, but for now, there’s the news.