Cubs Option Tommy Nance to Iowa, Call Up Trevor Megill

Well, Brett really nailed this one this morning.

After throwing 3.0 innings of relief yesterday – heroically saving the bullpen for this big series against the Brewers starting tonight – Tommy Nance is being sent down to Triple-A Iowa in favor of Trevor Megill.

Cubs option Tommy Nance to Triple-A Iowa.

Trevor Megill recalled from Iowa to add another arm to Cubs bullpen.

— Tony Andracki (@TonyAndracki23) June 28, 2021

Lately, Nance has struggled to keep his spin rate where it was at the start of the season, which has coincided, unsurprisingly, with a dropoff in his performance. But as Brett pointed out this morning, this is probably less about him and more about having a fresh arm (Megill) for the week ahead. After all, Nance threw 44 pitches across three innings of work and was almost certainly going to be shutdown today and tomorrow – at least – with an off-day on Thursday.

Megill did pitch yesterday, but he threw just one inning (20 pitches) and can reasonably be used tonight in a pitch or tomorrow normally. He was also already on the 40-man roster, so this is no big deal. Side not: Nance cannot return to the big league team for 10 days now … unless there’s an injury, which happens often enough to not make this a big deal. In the meantime, perhaps he can figure out a new way to be effective in a slightly different era/environment of pitching (hey, he was pretty good last night!).