The Cubs currently have Tuesday and Wednesday night’s starters listed as TBD, but ol’ Crawly has a little breaking news about some call-ups. According to the man known to the government as Paul Dzien, Caleb Kilian will take the bump for the late half of Tuesday’s twin bill with the Cardinals while newly-acquired Hayden Wesneski will make his MLB debut the following evening.
Wesneski had a rough start to his Cubs organizational tenure, but he gets a little grace because it came after a 10-day layoff and a move. He’s settled in nicely since and his most recent outing saw him go five shutout innings with just two hits and five strikeouts. Cubs VP of pitching Craig Breslow explained recently that Wesneski was more or less big league ready and just had a little fine-tuning to do.
“There’s not a ton of development opportunities that punch you in the face, which I think is a credit to him and where he’s coming from,” Breslow told reporters. “But we see a guy with maybe some tweaks we can make around the margins. You know, we’ll take a close look at usage and recommendations. But it’s a guy that’s easy to target, just given these things.”
Kilian has struggled in three starts for the Cubs this season, walking 12 batters to nine strikeouts in 11.1 innings as he continues to adjust to upgraded stuff. He developed flaws in his delivery as his velocity ticked up, leading to the wildness, but he’s been working to correct those issues and could put on a show as he faces the Cardinals again.
There will be a corresponding move once the Cubs officially announce Wesneski’s promotion, as he’s not yet on the 40-man roster. That could mean a DFA for Kervin Castro or perhaps one of the position players in an increasingly crowded mix. Rafael Ortega may be running out of time in Chicago and Frank Schwindel hasn’t played at Iowa since the 17th as his role diminishes. We’ll have more on the fallout later in the week.