It was a bit strange seeing Craig Counsell turn to Daniel Palencia to pick up the save during Monday night's game against the Marlins. We all know how that ended as Palencia gave up a two-strike, two-out double, walked the next batter and then allowed a walk-off triple to seal an 8-7 loss. As ugly as that was there was even worse news following the game.
Counsell told reporters in Miami that right-handed reliever Porter Hodge is headed to the injured list with an oblique issue. Hodge, who has struggled this year, entered the season as the top pitcher in the bullpen following his excellent rookie campaign in 2024.
Now, the Cubs bullpen will be without its best pitcher for a while.
Hodge, 24, last pitched on Saturday against the White Sox at Wrigley Field. The right-hander was recently back in the closer mix after veteran Ryan Pressly's historically bad appearance against the Giants on May 6. In the eyes of many Cubs fans Hodge has been seen as the next great Cubs closer after his performance last year.
In 2024, Hodge was called up from Triple-A in May and quickly earned the trust of his manager. The righty ended his first season in the majors with a 1.88 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, while striking out 52 batters in 43 innings. Hodge recorded nine saves and was also credited with nine holds out of the bullpen.
This year has been a different story for Hodge, who will go on the injured list with a 5.12 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in 19.1 innings. His strikeout rate has dropped from 31.7% to 22.6%, while the walk rate has seen a slight increase from 11.6% to 13.1% so far in 2025.
Hodge's ERA is a bit deceiving. He was charged with six earned runs in 0.2 inning in that wild game against the Diamondbacks in April, when Gage Workman botched a chopper hit to him at third base. Somehow Workman's mistake was not ruled an error, which led to five more runs being charged to Hodge's final pitching line. That being said, Hodge has not been as effective as he was last season.
Dating back to April 27, Hodge has only struck out four batters and has walked six in 6.2 innings of work. Now, that he's going on the injured list you could at least point to the oblique as a reason for his struggles. Hodge did start the season with a 12K/3BB ratio in his first nine appearances and only allowed two runs in nine innings. So, when healthy, Hodge was still dominant out of the bullpen.
Not great for the Cubs bullpen that has been below average this year. Thanks to performances from Brad Keller, Drew Pomeranz and Caleb Thielbar it hasn't been a complete disaster, but the decline in Hodge, Pressly and Julian Merryweather has certainly caused more concern in the past few weeks.
Oblique injuries are tricky to put a concrete recovery timeframe on, but for pitchers this usually means being sidelined for at least a month.
