Despite Delayed Decision, Minimal IL Stint for Kyle Tucker ‘Unlikely’

Craig Counsell told reporters prior to Friday’s game that Kyle Tucker is hitting and throwing, but he will not begin running until after the weekend. The manager added that activating Tucker on Tuesday, the earliest he is eligible to come off the IL, is “unlikely.” That’s somewhat interesting given he was doing running drills last weekend, when he was supposedly available off the bench. The Cubs maintained that ruse all the way up until Tuesday, at which point he had already missed five games.

Not only did that mean playing shorthanded for parts of three different series, but waiting so long meant they could only backdate the start of the IL stint to September 6 instead of three days earlier. And now, even after stringing it out as long as they did, Tucker still may not be ready after 10 days on the shelf. Place the blame for this wherever you like, but it’s a bad look regardless.

In other injury news, Daniel Palencia played catch on Friday in order to determine how the team will handle his situation. More to come there. Michael Soroka had a successful outing with the Iowa Cubs on Thursday night, tossing 2.1 innings with three strikeouts and touching 96 mph on the radar gun, and his next appearance will be back up in the bigs. Seeing the velocity back up that high after it had trended down for several weeks is a good sign.