Chicago Cubs midrotation starter Jameson Taillon was a late scratch from his would-have-been Spring Training debut yesterday, feeling tightness in his lower back after about 10 warmup pitches. The Cubs were waiting to see how he would feel a day later before thinking through the options.
Unfortunately, there was not meaningful improvement overnight:
What I take that to mean is that, after it happened yesterday, the Cubs and Taillon might’ve been hoping it was nothing. A tight feeling that they were overly cautious about, and then we wakes up feeling normal. So just proceed as usual, but with caution.
But that didn’t happen. He woke up still feeling it, which means there’s a little something actually going on in there, and you most likely just have to ride out until the inflammation/irritation/whatever subsides, and then figure out how impacted the throwing schedule has become. Pretty hard to project a timeline in that case, thus, no timeline predicted. If there is further testing and imaging, though, that could provide some additional clarity.
He might wind up fine for Opening Day, he might not. It might all depend on how the next five to seven days goes. Also keep in mind, Taillon has yet to pitch in a Cactus League game, and we don’t even know how stretched out he is. So I would tend to think, barring a miraculous bit of healing over the next week, he’s seemingly unlikely to be ready for the start of the regular season in just over two weeks.
If Taillon can’t go on Opening Day, the Cubs would figure to open the season with two of the fifth starter competitors in the rotation (Jordan Wicks, Drew Smyly, Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski). You’d tend to think it would be the first two in that group, but I do wonder if the Cubs would have even the tiniest flinch of a feeling about having four lefties in the rotation.
… of course, it’d be fine if one of those lefties were Jordan Montgomery. Just saying.