It’s pretty rare that you don’t know who is going to be starting in a given series for the Cubs when you’re just a day away from that series, but here we are.
Thanks to Yu Darvish’s rehab status and Tyler Chatwood’s paternity leave, the Cubs have two TBA’s on the upcoming pitcher schedule, with only Mike Montgomery listed as tomorrow’s starter to open up against the Twins. Jose Quintana starts today against the Dodgers, and, like Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester before him, he might get even more extra rest if the Cubs decide to simply insert Darvish and Chatwood back into the rotation this weekend.
If the Cubs go that route, and assuming Montgomery stays in the rotation (as he should), then the Cubs would have to go with a six-man rotation at least until the All-Star break, when they might re-evaluate. It’s going to be tricky, because there are three off-days before the break for the Cubs, which means starters getting a ton of extra rest. To be sure, I’m a strong advocate for the benefits of the six-man rotation, but even I recognize there is a fine line between rest and rust.
Let’s imagine Darvish feels good after his bullpen session today, and is ready to start on Saturday. And let’s also imagine that Tyler Chatwood is going to get the start on Sunday. There would be 11 more starts – with varying off-days – to divy up among the six starting pitchers from then until the break. Perhaps the Cubs could give everyone two additional starts except for Darvish, and they could simply give him extra rest after this upcoming start, and then he’d make just one more start before the break.
That works for me, though the wrinkle is Chatwood’s readiness to start in a game on Sunday, when he wouldn’t have pitched at that point for nearly two weeks.
We shall see.