NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Cubs are already good to go for tomorrow’s roster cut down day, having moved out a couple pitchers after today’s game.
As a reminder, teams have to go from 28-man active rosters to the normal 26-man rosters by tomorrow, with no more than 14 pitchers. For the Cubs, it’s lefty Locke St. John being optioned back to Triple-A Iowa, and righty Ethan Roberts going on the Injured List with righty shoulder inflammation.
St. John going back down is not a huge surprise, as he figured to be an up-down guy this year. Very interesting delivery, lots of strikeouts, but he did get hit HARD last night.
On Roberts, you just hope it was a close call to IL or not, and since the roster deadline was coming anyway, the Cubs decided to go that route. That is to say, shoulder stuff is scary, and you hope it’s not anything more than just a little irritation that can subside quickly.
For now, the positional group – Jason Heyward, Rafael Ortega, and Michael Hermosillo, for example – gets a reprieve. Eventually, though, the Cubs may want an extra arm (at least until every team has to go down to 13 pitchers maximum on May 29), and they’ll have to figure out what to do with the positional group. Ditto whenever Clint Frazier and/or Andrelton Simmons are ready to return.
Stay tuned for these roster moves around baseball over the next day or so, with the possibility of various waiver maneuverings and trades.
