With the Iowa Cubs season ending today, any pitchers who were not going to pitch today and who were definitely going to return to the big league team in September should be back today.
Thus:
Chatwood and Duensing will be activated. They are with the team here in Mil.
— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) September 3, 2018
We’ve talked a lot about Chatwood’s very choppy rehab experience with Iowa – it was a lot of what you were used to seeing at the big league level, with effectiveness interspersed with a total inability to throw strikes – but Duensing’s wasn’t much better, as he gave up 4 earned runs over 5.2 innings, with 7 hits, 2 walks, and 2 strikeouts.
It’s been a terrible, terrible year for these two guys. Their return to the big league team is much less about any kind of expectation that they’ll contribute down the stretch (especially Chatwood), and more a matter of some guys on big league contracts coming back to the big league team. I don’t expect them to get critical innings.
Each guy is under contract for next year, so hopefully an offseason to reset will help both. Then they can come to Spring Training to compete for a job.