After a month and a week of absence, Seiya Suzuki is finally back with the big league team. Narciso Crook has been optioned back to Iowa to make room for Suzuki coming off the Injured List. Someone had to get bounced at the moment, and Crook does make some sense. At least he’s on the 40-man roster now.
As for Suzuki, the finger injury that kept him out this long kind of took the focus off the struggles he was dealing with before the injury. It was league-adjustment time, and we were seeing a considerable uptick in Suzuki’s strikeouts after his blistering hot start. There was a little more hard contact again before the injury, but it was hardly enough to say he was “adjusting back,” so to speak.
Which is to say, the next few months for Suzuki are all about continuing that adjustment process. The 2022 season is already a lost one for the Cubs, so it’s not like the Cubs need him to rake so they can stay in a playoff race. Instead, they need him to develop so that he can rake next year.
Suzuki is right into the lineup, batting fourth today, sandwiched between Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner, who is justifiably climbing up the batting order.