{"id":70958,"date":"2024-04-20T14:00:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=70958"},"modified":"2024-04-20T13:36:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T17:36:45","slug":"cubs-justin-steele-nearing-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/20\/cubs-justin-steele-nearing-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs All-Star Pitcher Nearing Return After Opening Day Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chicago Cubs left-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/steelju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Steele<\/a>\u00a0is nearing his return to the Cubs rotation after injuring his hamstring on Opening Day. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Steele was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/02\/cubs-justin-steele-absence-april\/\" target=\"_self\">placed on the injured list<\/a> after suffering a Grade 1 strain of his left hamstring on Opening Day. The 28-year-old southpaw threw a bullpen session last week, taking the mound for the first time since injuring his hamstring. Steele is scheduled to face batters again in a live batting practice on Sunday. If Steele can get through batting practice without experiencing any setbacks, he could begin a rehab assignment shortly after.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Justin Steele throwing a live BP Sunday for Cubs.<\/p>\n<p>Next steps after that could be a rehab assignment.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tony Andracki (@TonyAndracki23) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TonyAndracki23\/status\/1781356025498505421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 19, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A fifth-round draft pick in 2014, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/steelju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Justin Steele<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> became an All-Star for the first time last season. Steele made 30 starts for the Cubs in 2023, pitching to a 16-5 record with a 3.06 ERA. He recorded a career-high 176 strikeouts and finished fifth in NL Cy Young voting. The left-hander hit his stride in a 16-game stretch between May and September last season. He went 10-1 pitching to a 2.30 ERA with 102 strikeouts and 17 walks in 94 innings pitched.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Justin Steele Nearing Return To Cubs Rotation<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Steele was an unexpected ace for Chicago last season and earned the title officially following <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/11\/marcus-stroman-new-york-yankees\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the departure of Marcus Stroman<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. A large part of Steele\u2019s success last season came from perfecting his four-seam fastball, which has become his signature pitch. His four-seamer doesn\u2019t light up the radar gun, but its unique movement and Steele\u2019s cross-body delivery keeps hitters guessing. Paired with a slider, Steele\u2019s success has come by throwing those two pitches more than 96% of the time. Only <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/luzarje01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jes\u00fas Luzardo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/corbipa01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Patrick Corbin<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> generated more swinging strikes on sliders outside of the strike zone among left-handers last season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chicago currently sits just a half-game back of the Milwaukee Brewers for the top spot in the NL Central. While Steele has been sidelined, the Cubs rotation has been led by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=imanag000sho\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shota Imanaga<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/assadja01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Javier Assad<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Right-hander <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/taillja01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jameson Taillon<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> made his season debut in Chicago\u2019s win over Miami on Friday after suffering a back injury in Spring Training.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s unclear how many rehab starts Steele might need to make before returning to the Cubs rotation. Cubs manager Craig Counsell said that after Steele was placed on the injured list, he expected the lefty to return sometime in May. When Steele does return to the Cubs rotation, he\u2019ll look to build on his breakout campaign last season and help Chicago return to the postseason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chicago Cubs left-hander Justin Steele\u00a0is nearing his return to the Cubs rotation after injuring his hamstring on Opening Day. Steele was placed on the injured list after suffering a Grade 1 strain of his left hamstring on Opening Day. The 28-year-old southpaw threw a bullpen session last week, taking the mound for the first time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":70970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1071],"tags":[1060,3425,285,507,645,1643,28268],"class_list":["post-70958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","tag-jameson-taillon","tag-jesus-luzardo","tag-marcus-stroman","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-nl-central","tag-patrick-corbin","tag-shota-imanaga"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}