{"id":226395,"date":"2025-08-05T07:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T07:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/226395\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T07:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T07:18:13","slug":"cubs-to-place-michael-soroka-on-il-with-shoulder-discomfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/226395\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs To Place Michael Soroka On IL With Shoulder Discomfort"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Soroka\u2019s<\/a> debut with the Cubs could hardly have gone worse. The righty only made it through two innings before departing the game with shoulder discomfort. Manager Craig Counsell said postgame that Soroka is headed to the 15-day injured list; the severity of the injury and recovery timeline aren\u2019t clear (relayed by Maddie Lee of The Chicago Sun-Times<\/a> and ESPN\u2019s Jesse Rogers<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Cubs acquired<\/a> Soroka from the Nationals on Wednesday. They sent rookie ball infielder\u00a0Ronny Cruz<\/a> and Triple-A outfielder\u00a0Christian Franklin<\/a> to Washington in return. Soroka had made his final start for the Nats the night before the trade. That kept him from making his first appearance with Chicago until tonight. Soroka fanned three while allowing a run in his two innings of work against the Reds. Cincinnati starter Nick Lodolo<\/a> also left in the second inning with an injury \u2014 a blister on his throwing hand, in his case.<\/p>\n

Shoulder discomfort seems a more significant concern than a blister. Soroka\u2019s fastball was sitting in the 90-91 range. His season average is 93.6 MPH. Soroka\u2019s velocity has plummeted coming out of the All-Star Break. His four-seamer was above 93 MPH in all but one start in the season\u2019s first half. It was down to 91.7 in his first appearance of the second half, then to roughly 91 flat over his final two appearances in a Washington uniform.<\/p>\n

Soroka said tonight (via Rogers<\/a>) that he underwent an MRI before the trade which confirmed he was healthy. He indicated he felt the discomfort tonight when he tried to reach back for a little extra velocity. Soroka has logged his heaviest workload in six years. The Canadian right-hander reached 174 2\/3 innings over 29 starts as a rookie with Atlanta in 2019.<\/p>\n

Consecutive Achilles tears essentially robbed him of the next three-plus seasons. Soroka also missed time with shoulder injuries in both 2023 and \u201924. He spent a good portion of last year with the White Sox in the bullpen, only starting nine of 25 appearances. He reached 79 2\/3 MLB innings last season and is up to 83 1\/3 frames this year. Tonight was his 17th start, his most since his excellent rookie season.<\/p>\n

The Cubs assumed roughly $2.9MM on Soroka\u2019s $9MM salary in the trade. He\u2019ll be a free agent at season\u2019s end. Jameson Taillon<\/a> isn\u2019t far off his return from a calf strain, but he\u2019s expected to require at least one more rehab start with Triple-A Iowa. In the interim, they\u2019ll probably go with a rotation of\u00a0Matthew Boyd<\/a>,\u00a0Shota Imanaga<\/a>,\u00a0Cade Horton<\/a>,\u00a0Colin Rea<\/a> and\u00a0Ben Brown<\/a>. The Soroka acquisition was meant to push Brown to the bullpen; he tossed four innings of one-run ball tonight in relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Soroka\u2019s debut with the Cubs could hardly have gone worse. The righty only made it through two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,734,1353,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-226395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-ben-brown","10":"tag-michael-soroka","11":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114974943094485434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}