Great news on the Ben Zobrist front, as he’s going to be kicking off the return process today.
Sources tell me that Ben Zobrist is expected to arrive in Chicago tomorrow and will be heading to South Bend to train with the Cubs Class A team for at least a few days. His plan for getting in baseball shape remains fluid for the next three weeks.
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) August 2, 2019
Can confirm that Cubs are planning to have Ben Zobrist begin a Minor League assignment with South Bend this weekend. Theo Epstein said earlier on this road trip that this weekend was the target.
Would need to be activated on 8/31 to be eligible for playoffs, if all goes well.
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) August 2, 2019
Ben Zobrist reports to Class-A South Bend today to start his work toward return to the #Cubs.
"We're expecting this to take most of if not all of August," Theo Epstein says of Zobrist rounding into form.https://t.co/MHaox95LCg pic.twitter.com/REx9Kl32nw
— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) August 2, 2019
Ultimately, it’s going to be a mini-Spring Training for Zobrist, who may not even begin playing in games on an everyday basis for a little while yet. It kinda depends on what shape he’s in, both in a physical sense (my guess is he kept it up well) and in a baseball sense (impossible to know until he starts facing live pitching).
After some time, the Cubs can see where things stand with Zobrist to have a better sense of just how much he can contribute to the big league team. He is 38, had a rough start to the season, and has been away from baseball action for three months. I’m very happy to see him getting back after it, but I don’t think anyone can say they know for sure how this will go.