The official diagnosis on Justin Steele’s hamstring: grade one strain. That’s often called a “mild” hamstring strain, so this is probably about as good as the news could get since we know this was a legit strain, and not some cramping tweener situation.
But, as you already know, even a “mild” or “grade one” hamstring strain is usually a month-long situation, and it’s possible this one takes longer:
The way I read that, the staff believe the strain was bad enough to know for sure that Justin Steele would be out at least a month, and I don’t think we should necessarily EXPECT that he’ll be back right away in May. Still, even if he’s out six weeks, this feels like a win compared to how long it could have been with a worse strain.
Just hope for a quick recovery and ramp back up to full effectiveness. All we can do.
In the meantime, I’ll be fascinated to see how the Cubs handle the rotation, at least until Jameson Taillon is ready in two or three weeks, hopefully. We know Ben Brown is coming up today to take Steele’s spot on the roster, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s slotting into Steele’s spot in the rotation. In fact, it’s possible the Cubs don’t just straight up replace Steele with one pitcher. Craig Counsell was known in Milwaukee to work out all kinds of piggybacks, openers, and whatever-it-takes to cover for injured starting pitchers.