Another step taken in Jameson Taillon’s rehab from his Spring Training back injury. He’s up to the 45-ish pitch mark in a game-like setting, and we can start looking ahead to a minor league rehab assignment.
Jameson Taillon Rehab
It was officially termed live BP for Taillon yesterday in Arizona, but Arizona Phil was there for what was really more of a highly-structured minor league intrasquad game. Taillon threw 43 pitches according to Phil, doing three innings of work. Apparently he looked really good in the process – more or less how you’d expect an experienced, established big league starter facing lower-level minor leaguers and rehabbing players.
Rich got some shots, too:
The results, of course, aren’t what matters in a setting like that. Just compete, get stretched out, and get set up for a minor league rehab assignment. Sounds like that’s the tentative plan now, for Taillon to head to Iowa this weekend to make a start.
Timeline
Projecting it out, you’d want to see Jameson Taillon add that additional inning and 15 pitches (i.e., go about four innings, about 60 pitches), but it’s hard to say if they’ll follow that ramp up given the Spring Training interruption, and the fact that he didn’t actually appear in any Spring Training games. That is to say, the Cubs may be planning for him to make at least two starts at Iowa before slotting him in to make his big league season debut.
If Jameson Taillon does take two starts at Iowa and stays on normal rest, that would have him ready to debut with the Cubs during the Diamondbacks series in Arizona (April 15-17). That series comes right in the middle of a 10-game stretch with no off-days, so that’d be the ideal time for him to return – it would mean the Cubs wouldn’t have to figure out a fill-in start during that stretch. Indeed, it could mean that they would have just one more fill-in day (after tonight) before Taillon returns.