The Chicago Cubs have officially announced a few roster moves prior to Tuesday night's series opener against the Atlanta Braves at Wrigley Field. Gold glove shortstop Dansby Swanson has been activated off the injured list, while 24-year-old infield prospect Luis Vazquez has been promoted to the big-league roster from Triple-A Iowa.
To make room on the 26-man roster, left-handed hitting infielder and sometimes corner outfielder Miles Mastrobuoni and rookie center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong have been optioned to Triple-A.
Somehow Nick Madrigal has once again survived a roster shake up.
The good news is that Swanson is healthy again and I'm guessing Nico Hoerner is going to be back in the lineup Tuesday night as well. Yeah, Swanson was struggling at the plate, but you can definitely point to his knee sprain as a major reason why he was scuffling in the first place.
As for the rest of the roster it's kind of weird right now. With PCA back at Triple-A now, the Cubs won't have a left-handed hitter on the bench whenever Mike Tauchman starts in a game. Meanwhile, Madrigal and Vazquez seem redundant because we already know that you can't expect much offense from Madrigal, while Vazquez has been slumping with the Iowa Cubs and he's a rookie.
I'm still puzzled, but I guess the last few guys on a roster should not matter too much. The Cubs will succeed or fail not because Nick Madrigal hits .220, they'll succeed because guys like Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Cody Bellinger, Michael Busch, Swanson and Hoerner contribute like we thought they would early in the season.
Looking ahead, the Cubs have yet to announce their starting pitcher for Thursday's series finale against the Braves. That spot in the rotation was originally scheduled to be Kyle Hendricks. It'll be interesting to see if the Cubs simply push Hendricks back to the St. Louis Cardinals series this upcoming weekend or if they skip him completely through this turn in the rotation and maybe Jordan Wicks is ready to come back at the end of next week to replace Hendricks?
The Cubs begin Tuesday 1.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the NL Central.
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