The Cubs announced that right-hander Daniel Palencia has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 14th, with a left oblique strain. A corresponding move was not announced and the club’s Friday afternoon game is about to start, so it appears they will play short-handed.
It’s yet another blow for the Cubs, who have been hit by a lot of injuries to their pitching staff lately. In the past two weeks, the bullpen has lost Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey and Ethan Roberts to the IL. It was also reported this week that Porter Hodge, who began the year on the IL, will require season-ending UCL surgery. Those bullpen hits are in addition to a few other knocks on the pitching staff. Starter Cade Horton also required UCL surgery while Matthew Boyd is on the IL at the moment.
It’s unclear how serious Palencia’s injury is but obliques can be tricky and he is a key part of the bullpen. He took over the closer’s job last year, racking up 22 saves. He threw 52 2/3 innings with a 2.91 earned run average. He struck out 28.4% of batters faced while keeping walks down to a 7.4% pace. He started this year strong. He pitched for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, giving them five scoreless innings, helping them lock down their first WBC title. Since the MLB season has started, he has added five scoreless innings for the Cubs.
It’s a little odd to see a guy placed on the IL without a corresponding move, but it may be due to unique circumstances. IL placements can be backdated by three days if the player hasn’t been playing. Palencia last pitched on Sunday, so the Cubs were able to backdate today’s move by the full three days. They haven’t had a save chance for him since then. They lost on Monday, then won blowout victories on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by an off-day on Thursday.
Speculatively speaking, it’s possible that Palencia hurt himself today, not long before game time. The Cubs may not have had enough time to get someone else up from the minors. But since Palencia wasn’t going to be available today anyway, they put him on the IL now. That way, he can theoretically come back in 12 days, if he recovers. If they waited until tomorrow to make the move, his path back would have been delayed by another day. Since the move was made so close to first pitch, the Cubs haven’t provided any details, but may do so after the game.
The Cubs have two pitchers on the 40-man roster who aren’t already up in the majors or on the injured list. Those two are Gavin Hollowell and Charlie Barnes, so perhaps one of them will head to Chicago to be activated for tomorrow’s game. In addition to that decision, they will have to figure out how to close games. Caleb Thielbar and Hoby Milner have one hold each and have the top leverage indexes of relievers still on the roster. Ben Brown and Jacob Webb could also move into more leverage situations. Riley Martin, Luke Little and Ryan Rolison are also in the current bullpen mix.
Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images
Absolutely ridiculous. Replace the entire training staff
Andddd nothing will change. Maybe I should hire a trainer. I’ll never get hurt again!!
What is “a performative, reactionary move”, Alex?
This is fine. Everything is fine.
Were you in the movie ” Animal House”?
This is the dagger they didn’t need at all. But you kind of figured was coming.
When it rains, it pours.
And not to mention the report of Horton’s surgery puts him out almost all of NEXT season also. 16+ month recovery time.
Holy hell…Ok Jed, I haven’t thrown a pitch in anger since my Purdue Big 10 days 25 years ago, but I’m only 2 hours away and I can be ready to give you maybe an inning tomorrow.
*pre-files claim with Blue Cross for some weird crippling injury that will keep me on the IL until I’m 65
Would be nice to have Andrew Kittredge in the bullpen right now. Thanks for just giving him away Jed. Say hello to your new closer Ben Brown for the next month.
Kittredge has been hurt, too. He hasn’t pitched at all.
Well, we always have Porter Hodge ready to step in and close…wait…no we don’t.
I wanna know how Ricketts and the Cubs are going to fix the bullpen now without going over the Tax? Answer- They can’t.
Good grief…
*sigh*
People have begun speculating that, with all the pitcher injuries, there might be something in the Cubs’ training regimen (note spelling, please) that is flawed. We don’t really have any evidence for that; all injuries are different and have different etiologies.
What we do know is, if you restrict your free-agent signings to players who are white or light-skinned Latinos, you leave out a whole bunch of pitchers who *might* stay healthy.
As for the closer issue, probably Ben Brown will get a chance to sink or swim now.
Probably the injury can be linked to P’s participation in that over-hyped piece of obnoxiousness, the World Baseball Classic. If you recall, he got way too over-excited about that unimportant exhibition. Now he is unavailable for the real games.
That was a month ago Alan….but per usual, we’re also over-excited to have your ridiculous takes back from your time back.
This was a racism free zone for at least a small portion of a week or so.
Welcome back, I guess.
Sorry, but I don’t believe he was racist in his comment.
You obviously missed hundreds of his other dark skinned/light skinned posts that we endure.
I agree wholeheartedly. And we lost Suzuki, who was hot as hell in ST and the WBC before getting injured in the WBC. And now that he’s back, he’s looked awful so far. I don’t like the WBC!!
I agree the regiment is not good. Probably got something to do with the edyoligeez.
They need some reinforcements, but there aren’t that many guys still out there. Giolito is more of a backend starter, and then maybe you could put Assad in long relief and Brown in higher leverage situations. Kopech seems like a good fit if he can fit in the budget, and if he’s even healthy and game ready. I’m sure Jed will be working the phones.
Budget? What budget? A smart guy wouldn’t have filled up the money they had if they wanted to stay under the Tax. You would hope that Ricketts and Hoyer would have discussed what they were going to do in case of a complete nightmare like this. I’m really just hoping this was discussed and planned for. But I think we all know better. So let’s see what happens next. We’ll be able to see if there was a plan soon enough. The first thing you should expect would be to see a mass trading of prospects that have no place to go anymore but out the door. Rojas, Triantos, Ramirez, Long should all have a ” Go Bag” packed already. Now that Ballesteros has woken up his value will never be higher. So let’s see what the big brain trust has in order. And like they say in the movies, ” Action”!