Hooray! After a successful rehab process (thoracic strain), Carl Edwards Jr. returns to the Cubs’ bullpen today, with Randy Rosario heading back to AAA Iowa.
Edwards, 27, has had a seriously up and down few years with the Cubs, but the guy was on a roll before his injury, dominating to the tune of a 2.03 ERA since his early May return from the previous demotion. The Cubs felt he needed to get his mental game in the right place, he did, and then he dominated – in addition to the tasty ERA, he was also striking out batters at a 31.9% clip while walking them just 6.4% of the time. That’s right, for a month and a half, Edwards was BETTER THAN AVERAGE in the walks department. That’s nuts.
Here’s hoping the injury didn’t muck things up. There were no signs at Iowa that it did, and it was not considered a serious injury.
As for Rosario, as good as he’s been in the upper minors, success at the big league level continues to elude him. He only just turned 25 and has options, so I don’t know that the Cubs are going to give up on him any time soon, but he might not be next in line to get big league shots with guys like Tim Collins, Dillon Maples, James Norwood, and Rowan Wick (among many others) waiting at Iowa.