Canada, like the United States, is still not allowing international travelers to enter the country unless they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. For Major League Baseball, that has meant a steady stream of unvaccinated players who cannot be with their team when they had to Toronto to play the Blue Jays.
For the Cubs, who head to Toronto tonight after the series finale against the Brewers they will be without two pitchers:
Sampson was not scheduled to pitch in the series anyway, so there will be no replacement player for him. Steele, by contrast, was in line to start on Wednesday (though he might not have because of the lower-back thing and the desire to maybe skip one start), so the Cubs will be able to bring up a player – non-40-man if they want – as a replacement. You wonder if it will indeed be a non-40-man guy that the Cubs want to give a look/reward to, without having to place them on the 40-man roster right now.