SAN FRANCISCO — Coming off a career-high in appearances, Chicago Cubs reliever Mark Leiter Jr. learned what goes into managing a workload over a full season out of the bullpen.
His knowledge and understanding from last season prompted Leiter to let the Cubs know his forearm felt fatigued rather than try to keep pitching through it. After manager Craig Counsell stayed away from using him for three days, the Cubs placed Leiter on the 15-day injured list Sunday with a right forearm strain. Counsell and Leiter are both optimistic he will only need a minimum stint.
“The hardest thing is just knowing as a relief pitcher what’s too much and what’s normal because you go out there at a less-than-normal percentage every single night, you’re just going to go out there with the best you have,” Leiter said Monday. “Some days you recover better than others and you just find a way to get the job done. So I think just understand that if you take care of the little things in the short term it has a better rebound effect throughout the whole year as opposed to trying to just mask it and fight through it when you maybe could just avoid all of it.”
Leiter, 33, has been arguably the Cubs’ most reliable reliever this year. His struggles in his last four outings, eight runs allowed in 3 1/3 innings, coincided with the forearm issue that Counsell indicated had emerged over the last couple of weeks. Ultimately, they determined trying to grind through it for the next three months wasn’t the smartest path.
“He’s a competitor. You want to pitch, you can pitch but we just saw his recovery was slowing down,” Counsell said Monday. “So you take a little break and then does that address it and then when it doesn’t, then you say let’s just take a longer break and make sure and get rid of it so we’re not dealing with it for the next three months.
“It’s never easy pushing the pause button, but it’s the right thing to do and I think it gives him the best chance to have a good second half of the season.”
Leiter leads the Cubs in appearances (32) with only one other reliever (Héctor Neris, 29) to pitch in at least 25 games. Leiter’s nasty splitter has made him a lefty neutralizer, a responsibility that could potentially go to left-hander Luke Little, recalled from Triple-A Iowa in the corresponding move, and right-handers Tyson Miller and Hayden Wesneski.
“Everybody’s been pitching pretty good overall and it’s just a matter of getting the opportunity to continue to show it and pick each other up when somebody’s got to take little time off,” Leiter said. “We’ve got a lot of depth to continue to move forward.”
The bullpen, though, won’t be getting right-hander Yency Almonte back as soon as it may have appeared one week ago.
Almonte is getting another opinion on his right shoulder after he did not get through Tuesday’s live batting practice symptom-free.
“He got through it, but not the way you want to get through it,” Counsell said.
Almonte has been sidelined by a right shoulder strain since May 8. His rehab process is paused while the Cubs evaluate why his shoulder hasn’t responded well enough to continue through the build-up phase.
“We’re just not progressing,” Counsell said. “So we have to find out whether medically there’s something we have to address or we just have to take a different path in the rehab.”
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