{"id":590383,"date":"2026-04-17T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/590383\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:20:08","slug":"cubs-place-daniel-palencia-on-il-with-oblique-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/590383\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Place Daniel Palencia On IL With Oblique Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cubs announced that right-hander Daniel Palencia<\/a> has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 14th, with a left oblique strain. A corresponding move was not announced and the club\u2019s Friday afternoon game is about to start, so it appears they will play short-handed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s yet another blow for the Cubs, who have been hit by a lot of injuries to their pitching staff lately. In the past two weeks, the bullpen has lost Phil Maton<\/a>, Hunter Harvey<\/a> and Ethan Roberts<\/a> to the IL. It was also reported this week that Porter Hodge<\/a>, who began the year on the IL, will require season-ending UCL surgery. Those bullpen hits are in addition to a few other knocks on the pitching staff. Starter Cade Horton<\/a> also required UCL surgery while Matthew Boyd<\/a> is on the IL at the moment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how serious Palencia\u2019s injury is but obliques can be tricky and he is a key part of the bullpen. He took over the closer\u2019s job last year, racking up 22 saves. He threw 52 2\/3 innings with a 2.91 earned run average. He struck out 28.4% of batters faced while keeping walks down to a 7.4% pace. He started this year strong. He pitched for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, giving them five scoreless innings, helping them lock down their first WBC title<\/a>. Since the MLB season has started, he has added five scoreless innings for the Cubs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little odd to see a guy placed on the IL without a corresponding move, but it may be due to unique circumstances. IL placements can be backdated by three days if the player hasn\u2019t been playing. Palencia last pitched on Sunday, so the Cubs were able to backdate today\u2019s move by the full three days. They haven\u2019t had a save chance for him since then. They lost on Monday, then won blowout victories on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by an off-day on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Speculatively speaking, it\u2019s possible that Palencia hurt himself today, not long before game time. The Cubs may not have had enough time to get someone else up from the minors. But since Palencia wasn\u2019t going to be available today anyway, they put him on the IL now. That way, he can theoretically come back in 12 days, if he recovers. If they waited until tomorrow to make the move, his path back would have been delayed by another day. Since the move was made so close to first pitch, the Cubs haven\u2019t provided any details, but may do so after the game.<\/p>\n

The Cubs have two pitchers on the 40-man roster who aren\u2019t already up in the majors or on the injured list. Those two are Gavin Hollowell<\/a> and Charlie Barnes<\/a>, so perhaps one of them will head to Chicago to be activated for tomorrow\u2019s game. In addition to that decision, they will have to figure out how to close games. Caleb Thielbar<\/a> and Hoby Milner<\/a> have one hold each and have the top leverage indexes of relievers still on the roster. Ben Brown<\/a> and Jacob Webb<\/a> could also move into more leverage situations. Riley Martin<\/a>, Luke Little<\/a> and Ryan Rolison<\/a> are also in the current bullpen mix.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs announced that right-hander Daniel Palencia has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[29385,99],"class_list":["post-590383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-daniel-palencia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}