{"id":126063,"date":"2025-09-07T07:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/126063\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T07:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:18:11","slug":"cubs-notes-tucker-crow-armstrong-caissie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/126063\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Notes: Tucker, Crow-Armstrong, Caissie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cubs have been without Kyle Tucker<\/a> since he exited Tuesday\u2019s game against the Braves due to a calf issue, and it\u2019s unclear when he\u2019ll be returning to the lineup. Yesterday, manager Craig Counsell<\/a> told reporters (as relayed by Marquee Sports Network<\/a> on social media) that Tucker \u201cdidn\u2019t really make progress\u201d during Thursday\u2019s day off, and would be out of the lineup for another day before adding that today would be a \u201cbig day\u201d in terms of deciding how to proceed.<\/p>\n

That language seemed to suggest that an injured list stint was in the cards for Tucker if he wasn\u2019t healthy enough to return to the lineup today, and Jesse Rogers of ESPN<\/a> reported that outfield prospect Owen Caissie<\/a> was scratched from Triple-A Iowa\u2019s lineup and brought to Chicago in case a roster move was necessary. Ultimately, however, Tucker remains day-to-day and out of the lineup without a roster move. Counsell told reporters (as noted by Marquee<\/a>) today that the club thinks that they \u201chave time to let this heal\u201d without an IL stint, seemingly indicating that he\u2019ll be back in the lineup within the next few days.<\/p>\n

Injured list stints can be backdated a maximum of three days, meaning that if Tucker had gone on the shelf today he\u2019d be eligible to return for next weekend\u2019s series against the Rays. In that time, Caissie could have joined with fellow top prospect Kevin Alcantara<\/a> to form a platoon in right field, with Pete-Crow Armstrong in center and Ian Happ<\/a> in right while utility man Willi Castro<\/a> and DH Seiya Suzuki<\/a> serve as backup options in the outfield. Instead, the Cubs have opted to keep Tucker on the roster, with Suzuki and Castro splitting time in right field while Carlos Santana<\/a> fills in at DH on days where Suzuki is in the outfield.<\/p>\n

A roster move to bolster the outfield mix may yet be necessary, however. Crow-Armstrong exited today\u2019s loss against the Nationals due to a knee contusion after fouling a ball off of his knee. As he told reporters (including Bruce Levine of 670 The Score<\/a>) after the game, the incident has caused \u201ca whole different kind of pain\u201d than he\u2019s used to. Crow-Armstrong went on to indicate that a decision on his status going forward won\u2019t be made clear until tomorrow, but it seems feasible he might be ticketed for either an injured list stint or at least a few days off due to the injury. Having both Tucker and Crow-Armstrong unavailable on the bench would stretch the Cubs rather thin, given that both Justin Turner<\/a> and Carlos Santana are limited to first base and DH duties only. Those two could handle DH while Suzuki, Castro, and Alcantara mix and match between right and center field, but that\u2019s a less than ideal solution and simply placing one of their two ailing outfielders on the shelf to make room for Caissie may wind up being preferable.<\/p>\n

The Cubs have the good fortune of having relatively little to play for over the final few weeks of the regular season. Fangraphs<\/a> gives the club a 99.8% chance to secure a playoff spot this season, while their odds of surpassing the surging Brewers in the NL Central sit at a paltry 3.1%. With a Wild Card berth more or less guaranteed, Chicago could surely afford to place either Tucker or Crow-Armstrong (or, perhaps, both) on the injured list and fill out their roster with prospects at Triple-A already on the 40-man roster like Caissie and Moises Ballesteros<\/a> if they think resting their stars could put them in a better position to win in October. Of course, with Crow-Armstrong slumping badly in recent weeks (.178\/.225\/.243 since August 1) and Tucker having recently broken out of his own slump, it\u2019s also possible that they would benefit from getting as many reps as possible in order to get back on track before the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs have been without Kyle Tucker since he exited Tuesday\u2019s game against the Braves due to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,510,462,4006,14257,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-126063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-kyle-tucker","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-owen-caissie","13":"tag-pete-crow-armstrong","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}