{"id":655446,"date":"2026-03-31T23:51:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/655446\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:51:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:51:26","slug":"cubs-of-seiya-suzuki-nearing-return-from-knee-injury-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/655446\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs OF Seiya Suzuki nearing return from knee injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — Cubs<\/a> right fielder Seiya Suzuki<\/a> is close to returning from a knee injury he suffered during the WBC, according to manager Craig Counsell.<\/p>\n

Suzuki, 31, is eligible to come off the IL this weekend but will instead head to Double or Triple-A in order to get some at-bats before being activated. The team is still deciding where he’ll do his rehab assignment based on weather reports for those respective teams.<\/p>\n

Suzuki passed several tests on Tuesday, leading to his return to the field.<\/p>\n

“Today was really trying to put him through one last test and that including some stops\/starts, kind of unexpected moves on the bases,” Counsell said. “He did (some) sliding. So we’re in a really good space.”<\/p>\n

Suzuki has been out since mid-March after injuring his right knee on a stolen base attempt during the WBC quarterfinals against Venezuela. He was diagnosed with a minor PCL strain and has been on the mend since. The team could play him at designated hitter but wants him fully recovered before bringing him back.<\/p>\n

“We’ll activate him when he’s ready to play right field,” Counsell said.<\/p>\n

Suzuki had a huge year in 2025 when he hit a career high 32 home runs while driving in 103. His production helped the Cubs to the postseason for the first time since 2020. He’ll be a free agent at the end of this season.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki is close to returning from a knee injury he suffered during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[83757,5,138,24,4245,161,649,4,169,38084],"class_list":{"0":"post-655446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-83757","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-espn","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-suzuki-seiya"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116326477689789688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655446","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=655446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}