Steele is Feeling Really Good Overall, Offensive Lull, Pitcher Updates, and Other Cubs Bullets

May 23, 2024

The Little Boy has a special ceremony at school today, so the schedule is a little atypical for me. Hopefully the Cubs beat the Braves, take the series, and that’ll put a great cap on the day.

The 7th inning still counts, but it was hard to watch Justin Steele last night and not think, “OK, cool, he’s good again” through those first 6.0. And then even what happened in the 7th was not entirely reflective of Steele suddenly pitching poorly, either, so I suppose I’m saying I was encouraged overall. Especially knowing how good Steele, himself, is feeling right now, which matters for the next four months, not just last night.

“I feel like I’m getting the four-seamer in on the righties, which I like to do,” Steele said after the game, per Cubs.com. “They just do a good job of beating me there. You just kind of have to tip your cap, maybe throw a different pitch, different location. You just have to evaluate it, but I feel good about executing the pitch. Just gotta take positives from it …. Especially going off the way I’ve been feeling, I would say the past two or three starts, especially with my heater. My velo has kind of been at an all-time high as far as I’ve been starting in the big leagues. So that feels really good. I’m really happy with that. I feel like I’m executing at a pretty high level at this point. Feeling really good with where I’m at.”

Craig Counsell on Steele’s outing being better than the line score shows, and where things went wrong for the team last night:

Adbert Alzolay’s second opinion on the forearm didn’t immediately recommend surgery, though it also didn’t rule it out:

Adbert Alzolay will be shut down for at least two weeks, manager Craig Counsell said.

Surgery not off the table, but they’ll know more after his down period.— Andy Martínez (@amartinez_11) May 22, 2024

Adbert Alzolay will remain shut down with a right flexor strain, Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, as the team follows a conservative treatment plan for an injury that does not sound like a short-term issue: “It’s going to be a while.”— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) May 22, 2024

As I mentioned yesterday, if the issue does wind up requiring surgery – flexor tendon, not Tommy John – Alzolay’s season is still over either way, and he’d theoretically be in decent shape for Spring Training next year. So the fact that surgery wasn’t IMMEDIATELY recommend, and there might be a re-check in two weeks, doesn’t necessarily comfort me as much as it might otherwise. In other words, whether he got the surgery now or in two weeks, the outcome would likely be the same. So might as well wait and see.

Elsewhere among the injured pitching corps, Daniel Palencia (shoulder) is doing well from a health perspective, but needs to settle into more of a performance rhythm before the Cubs would bring him back. Drew Smyly (hip) came out of his rehab start well, and he might get one more outing before being activated next week. Jordan Wicks (forearm) threw a bullpen on Tuesday, and his first rehab outing come come soon (I would guess this weekend).

This is not an unfair comment at this point:

For now, forget about the prospects in Iowa and players on the edges of the roster. The Cubs need their best hitters – the ones with contracts and security – to start performing again. Until then, their offense will keep getting put on no-hitter watch. ⬇️https://t.co/zQV0kdY1Tv— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) May 23, 2024

From Jed Hoyer in the article: “These are the things that happen over a long season. You have your ups and downs. Right now, or at least for the last few weeks, we’ve certainly been at a low point offensively. We’ve had too many games where we’ve had zero, one or two hits through six innings. We haven’t been able to string at-bats together. That is undeniable. But I just think this is what teams go through over the course of a season.”

Teams do go through periods of collective offensive woe, and the Cubs of May certainly fit the mold of one where it could POSSIBLY include a lot of noise: some injury issues, a string of extremely good pitching opponents, a lot of batted ball misfortune. Three weeks can feel like an eternity when you’re watching the zeroes constantly go up, but we have to remind ourselves that we’re talking about around 1/10th of the season. It’s a big chunk and it does matter. And I definitely do not think this is ALL excusable – much of it is straight up underperformance from guys the Cubs need to be better. But I still think the bones are there for this to be an above-average offense overall. Not massively above. Just a bit above.

Remember this outing (though hopefully Porter Hodge‘s trajectory from here is better):

Porter Hodge became the first Cubs reliever since Todd Wellemeyer on May 15, 2003 at MIL to strike out all three batters faced in an MLB debut. https://t.co/GtwoM0l2j4— Meghan Montemurro (@M_Montemurro) May 23, 2024

Great, great story:

Luis Vázquez's journey included his dad asking to borrow money and a car to drive him over an hour away to play baseball.

Wednesday, all those sacrifices were rewarded.

"It was worth the pain. All the sacrifices were worth the effort.”https://t.co/29XPr07goN— Andy Martínez (@amartinez_11) May 23, 2024

So much for the hope on acquiring Michael Baumann from the O’s – even though he was DFA’d, he wound up netting the O’s a relatively significant trade return from the Mariners, catching prospect Blake Hunt. So we certainly had the right idea on wanting Baumann for the Cubs, but clearly the Mariners wanted him even more.

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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