{"id":662003,"date":"2026-04-04T02:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T02:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/662003\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T02:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T02:37:08","slug":"chicago-cubs-outfielder-starts-2026-season-with-knoxville-smokies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/662003\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs outfielder starts 2026 season with Knoxville Smokies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Japanese-born baseball star who went viral in 2025 for <a href=\"https:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/2025\/03\/13\/seiya-suzuki-samurai-sword-batting-practice-video-cubs\/82359168007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:taking batting practice with a samurai sword;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;taking batting practice with a samurai sword&quot;}\" class=\"link \">taking batting practice with a samurai sword<\/a> started his 2026 season with the Double-A Smokies in Knoxville.<\/p>\n<p>Seiya Suzuki appeared with the Cubs in spring training before suffering a knee injury in the World Baseball Classic in March while playing for Japan. His rehab start with the Smokies on April 3 began with a ground-ball single in the gap between second and third base, and he crossed home plate in the first inning courtesy of a three-run homer from Jefferson Rojas.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Knoxville Smokies outfielder Seiya Suzuki (6) jogs around the bases after Knoxville Smokies infielder Jefferson Rojas (2) hits a three run home run during Opening Day for the Knoxville Smokies at Covenant Health Park against the Birmingham Barons on April 3, 2026.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e9676f86689cf70cc2e0330bcbec7621.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Knoxville Smokies outfielder Seiya Suzuki (6) jogs around the bases after Knoxville Smokies infielder Jefferson Rojas (2) hits a three run home run during Opening Day for the Knoxville Smokies at Covenant Health Park against the Birmingham Barons on April 3, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/48361455\/cubs-seiya-suzuki-nearing-return-knee-injury\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Craig Counsell\u00a0told reporters;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Craig Counsell&amp;nbsp&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Craig Counsell\u00a0told reporters<\/a> March 31 the club is &#8220;looking at probably three to seven days, somewhere in that range&#8221; for Suzuki&#8217;s rehab before the right fielder is able to return to the Cubs, according to ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Suzuki became available to MLB teams in 2022 and joined the Cubs after nearly a decade as a professional player in Japan. In his first year with the Cubs, Suzuki played in 111 games and finished the season with a .262 batting average, 14 home runs and 46 RBIs.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Wilusz\u00a0is the business growth and development editor for Knox News. Email:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/mailto:ryan.wilusz@knoxnews.com\" data-ylk=\"slk:ryan.wilusz@knoxnews.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;ryan.wilusz@knoxnews.com&quot;}\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ryan.wilusz@knoxnews.com<\/a>; Cell:\u00a0865-317-5138; Instagram:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/knoxscruff\/?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@knoxscruff;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;@knoxscruff&quot;}\" class=\"link \">@knoxscruff<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Support strong local journalism by subscribing at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.knoxnews.com\/offers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:subscribe.knoxnews.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;subscribe.knoxnews.com&quot;}\" class=\"link \">subscribe.knoxnews.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.knoxnews.com\/story\/sports\/local\/2026\/04\/03\/chicago-cubs-seiya-suzuki-starts-2026-season-with-knoxville-smokies\/89460003007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Chicago Cubs&#039; Seiya Suzuki starts 2026 season with Knoxville Smokies;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Chicago Cubs&#039;&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Chicago Cubs&#8217; Seiya Suzuki starts 2026 season with Knoxville Smokies<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Japanese-born baseball star who went viral in 2025 for taking batting practice with a samurai sword started&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,3180,138,24,4245,161,2372,9673,4,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-662003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-batting-practice","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-japan","15":"tag-jefferson-rojas","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-seiya-suzuki"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662003","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=662003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}