Cubs left-handed starter Wade Miley wanted to make one thing clear Saturday before a game against the White Sox that he said he was originally scheduled to start: “I’m not hurt. I’m a little banged up.”
Miley is dealing with some shoulder discomfort, which he likened to a middle-of-spring training dead arm.
“I’m just going through it in the middle of baseball season,” Miley said.
Because he didn’t have a spring training. Instead, left elbow inflammation halted Miley’s ramp-up process before he threw in a game and landed him on the 10-day injured list to start the season. Miley has a 3.38 ERA in three starts, including seven shutout innings against the Pirates in his second game. He said his elbow “feels great” now.
Miley, though, felt something in his shoulder as he warmed up to face the Diamondbacks a little under a week ago. And though he held Arizona to three runs in six innings in a 5-4 win last Sunday, Miley said he never really got loose. When his recovery was slow, he shut down his midweek throwing.
“I don’t think it’s an IL thing, no,” Miley said.
Manager David Ross wasn’t as optimistic when asked if Miley would avoid the IL.
“We’ll see how things play out,” Ross said. “He’s got to throw a bullpen, and we’ll see how that goes, play some catch.”
Miley said he felt “way better” playing catch Saturday. He’s scheduled to throw long toss and off a mound Sunday, and if that goes well, he hopes to throw a full bullpen Monday.
He said he hasn’t talked with coaches about when he will slot in for his next start, but he hopes to return to the rotation next week.
Confronting mass shootings in the U.S.
“I don’t have any answers, but I think something has to change,” Ross said Saturday at Guaranteed Rate Field, where the flags still flew at half-mast. “Anybody that’s a parent that has a kid that saw what’s happening around our country lately, their radar’s up. And you put yourself in those people’s shoes, and something has to change.”
The Cubs joined the rest of the Chicago Sports Alliance — a collaboration between the Cubs, Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks — in donating to the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation and the Robb School Memorial Fund.
The alliance’s donation, in response to mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, came to $300,000, with commitments of $50,000 from each of the sports teams and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
“For me, I’ll say that the 20 best minutes of my day every day are driving my kids to school,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “I drop three boys off every day, and some days a lot of conversation, some days laughing, DJ-ing, whatever it is. It’s a great moment to have with them.
“And it definitely felt different at the end of the week dropping them off and thinking about it. And I think we all can agree that dropping your kids off at school isn’t something you should ever have to think about.”
Frazier returns
The Cubs activated outfielder Clint Frazier, who underwent an appendectomy last month, from the 10-day IL.
They also transferred outfielder Michael Hermosillo from the IL with no injury designation (read: COVID-19 related IL) back to the 10-day IL (left quadriceps strain) and returned rookie reliever Brandon Hughes to Triple-A Iowa.
