The Chicago Cubs have had a few injuries pop up this spring training, however, many of them have cleared up rather rapidly and made things easier on the team. Only two players at this point are either on the Injured List or expected to be, those are Tyson Miller and Javier Assad. Assad was placed on the 15-day IL on March 17, meaning he is now about halfway through his stint.
The good news with his injury is that he is recovering rather rapidly, and is starting to progress through the sessions leading up to being ready once again. A report by Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Sun-Times states that Assad, "threw a 40-pitch bullpen session Saturday and is expected to throw batting practice this week."
Given he was dealing with a strained left oblique, this is about on-pace for his recovery timeline as his IL stint should end right around when he is ready to go. The fact that he is already onto throwing bullpen sessions and potentially batting practice is a good sign that things are progressing well and he is beginning to feel better to an extent.
Odds are the Cubs will run with Colin Rea as the fifth man in the rotation in the upcoming series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, but once that series wraps up on March 30, it will be intriguing to see how things line up depending on where Assad stands in his comeback and whether or not Rea produces well in his assigned game.
Regardless, it would be extremely difficult to pull Assad out of the lineup when heathy, as he has been an immensely productive pitcher in his first three MLB seasons, and given his extensive pitch repertoire, he can be utilized in many different scenarios. 2024 was his biggest workload yet, pitching a substantial 147 innings in 29 games. In this span, he would have a 3.73 ERA, 1.401 WHIP, 124 strikeouts to 63 walks, but would allow 20 home runs.
This was arguably his worst of the three seasons so far, but still a quality one nonetheless, and the struggles were somewhat expected with his bump in innings played. In those three years he has gone from pitching 37.2 innings to 109.1 and then to 147, so the increase has been less of a steady one and more of a piling on.
Hopefully, he can find his tempo in these bullpen sessions, and work his way back to feeling healthy, as his talent is most definitely needed in the Chicago rotation.
