“We have a couple more injuries today, unfortunately,” Cubs skipper Craig Counsell said to start his pregame media session Monday at Wrigley Field.
You know it’s bad when nobody even has to ask.
Yes, there’s more bad injury news for the Cubs, who couldn’t make it consecutive days without sending a player to the injured list.
Monday, it was a pair, with utility man Matt Shaw landing on the IL with a sprained left hand and righty reliever Ethan Roberts heading there with inflammation in his right forearm.
That made six injured-list placements in six days.
Though Roberts’ presence in an increasingly injury-ravaged bullpen is a much needed one, Shaw was on something of a hot streak since returning from his previous IL stint earlier this month.
He had a .395 on-base percentage in 14 games in June, seeing regular playing time as the team’s primary right fielder while Seiya Suzuki has battled nagging knee discomfort that’s limited him to DH duty. Among Cubs hitters, only Suzuki and the red-hot Pete Crow-Armstrong had a higher June OPS than Shaw’s .852 coming into Monday.
But the Cubs don’t seem concerned that Shaw will be sidelined long.
“We’re pretty optimistic here,” Counsell said. “We ruled out everything else that could have been longer term, in terms of worrisome. He’s got some pretty good swelling in there right now, and we’ve got to get rid of that. But I think there’s a world where he’s swinging a bat by the weekend.
“As soon as we get the inflammation out, we think we can move forward pretty quickly. There’s a chance that one’s a minimum [stay].”
On the pitching side …
Things are much more dire when it comes to the Cubs’ collection of arms, where they’re facing an outrageous amount of concurrent injuries.
Roberts has been among the several heavily used pitchers in a bullpen that’s down closer Daniel Palencia and lost late-inning men Phil Maton and Hoby Milner in the last week.
The results weren’t good during his 11 appearances this month — he has an 8.38 June ERA — culminating in Sunday’s struggle of an outing in the 10th inning against the Brewers, when he faced three batters, giving up a couple hits and a walk, charged with both runs scored in that frame.
But with the Cubs facing a shortage of healthy arms, losing Roberts, even with those results, is not ideal.
“Ethan’s been one of the guys that’s pitched a lot,” Counsell said. “I don’t think we have anything serious here. We’ve got to give him a break, basically. But he’s got some symptoms, yeah.”
Up from the minors
To take the spots vacated by Shaw and Roberts, the Cubs brought outfielder Kevin Alcantara and relief pitcher Gavin Hollowell up from Triple-A.
We’ll see if and how Alcantara factors into the plans in right field with Shaw sidelined.
The Cubs started Michael Conforto in right for Monday’s series-opener against the Padres. Conforto, though, has only received four plate appearances against left-handed pitchers this season.
“Matt was doing a good job,” Counsell said. “It now falls on somebody else to pick up the slack. Michael Conforto’s going to get more regular at-bats, that’s kind of the logical thing here.
“Against lefties, we’re going to have to figure out how we want to move guys around.”
