Because his performance had waned so considerably since the London Trip, with signs in his pitches that something was off, it’s been understandable that folks were speculating about some kind of injury issue with Marcus Stroman.
The logical ask was about the blister issue that popped up for him in that London game, which would have explained why he was suddenly having trouble with his signature slider, and why his command was so off.
But the Cubs, and Stroman, kept indicating that it wasn’t the blister. And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was his hip:
We’ll have to find out just how serious the hip injury is for Stroman. It’s possible this is a situation where he’s been feeling some discomfort in the hip for a little while, but it never quite rose to the point of an Injured List stint. But now, with the deadline passed and another ugly performance in the books for Stroman, maybe he and the Cubs decided it was in everyone’s best interest for him to shut it down for a couple weeks. That’s certainly my hope. And then maybe he comes back without the discomfort for the home stretch.
All of that would be the perfect combination of explaining Stroman’s down results lately, while leaving open plenty of reason to be optimistic about his productivity upon his return. Because the Cubs still very much need a healthy and effective Stroman to make a playoff run work.
We’ll see what the Cubs opt to do with Stroman’s rotation spot, as Javier Assad actually pitched a lot of Monday’s game in relief of Stroman, so he’d line up on normal rest. There’s also Hayden Wesneski, though, who pitched a couple innings last night. We know that it won’t be pitching prospect Ben Brown coming up for a spot start, though, as he also just hit the Injured List at Iowa (injury not disclosed).
Meanwhile, the bullpen gets a temporary boost, with Jose Cuas being activated after the trade for Nelson Velazquez. We discussed Cuas briefly here, but the short version is that he’s a sidearmer with overall average results, but whose performance seems to have been trending up as this season has gone on. Here’s hoping the Cubs found a gem on the upswing.