It’s been about a month and a half since Chicago Cubs’ ace Shota Imanaga graced the mound for Chicago. The 31-year-old southpaw went down with a left hamstring strain in an outing against the Milwaukee Brewers on May 4. Finally, the Cubs have a promising timeline for his return.
If all goes according to plan, Imanaga should return later this month in St. Louis. Imanaga will throw one last bullpen session in Arizona before a rehab start with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. This comes after he threw 55 pitches during a scoreless, four-inning outing in the Arizona Complex League.
“We just need to really evaluate,” Cubs’ pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said, “now that he’ll be in the first [rehab start], I would say, a higher-intent, bigger environment with a little tougher competition, to see where he’s at. We’re not ruling out that he wouldn’t be ready after this next outing. But really, we just need to see how he’s recovering and how the stuff looks in a longer outing.”
The assumption is that Imanaga can rejoin the rotation after his upcoming rehab start if he can throw around 75 pitches, but the Cubs won’t rush it if this isn’t the case. If not, Chicago could opt to give him one more rehab start.
Prior to falling on the IL, Imanaga was pitching to a 2.82 ERA with 34 strikeouts across 44.2 innings. With the Cubs’ starting rotation struggling to hold its own in the wake of three devastating injuries, Imanaga’s return would be a much-welcome sight.
