{"id":787641,"date":"2026-08-25T02:15:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T02:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/787641\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T02:15:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T02:15:39","slug":"chicago-cubs-pitcher-justin-steele-eyes-late-season-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/787641\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs pitcher Justin Steele eyes late-season return"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 Left-hander Justin Steele had this Chicago Cubs series in Arizona circled for a while.<\/p>\n

Steele\u2019s journey to get back to the Cubs following April 2025 elbow surgery hit a setback this spring<\/a> when he suffered a flexor strain, significantly prolonging the rehab process.<\/p>\n

Steele is around the team this week during the Cubs\u2019 three-game series against the Diamondbacks as he moves closer to getting back into major-league action. He said he recovered well after his first live batting practice last week and has been playing catch every day since then without issue.<\/p>\n

Steele is scheduled to throw live batting practice Tuesday and Friday at the team\u2019s complex in Mesa, and indicated he could then begin a rehab assignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long road and feels really good to get towards the end of that tunnel,\u201d Steele said Monday. \u201cYou see how the team\u2019s playing, you just want to get back and help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steele believes it\u2019s \u201cabsolutely\u201d realistic to think about pitching for the Cubs this season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we had the setback, we were having those thoughts of what makes the most sense, and we ended up deciding coming back in a bullpen role made the most sense,\u201d Steele said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to have enough time to get stretched out to be a starter in an impactful way. So we just leaned towards the bullpen role and was able to build up quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Cubs starting pitcher Justin Steele throws against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second inning at the Tokyo Dome on March 19, 2025, in Tokyo. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Steele, who anticipates not getting built up beyond 2-3 innings, will require a lengthy rehab stint since he hadn\u2019t reached that point when the setback happened four months ago.<\/p>\n

That was made clear Monday by manager Craig Counsell. He cautioned that Steele still has a ways to go<\/a> before he pitches in the majors this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to get him pitching in (rehab) games first \u2014 I don\u2019t want to skip steps here, we\u2019re not going to skip steps,\u201d Counsell said Monday. \u201cHe rightfully should be at a place where that is what his head should be on, but we have a lot of steps to go before we get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, he hasn\u2019t pitched in an affiliated game in almost two years, so let\u2019s get him pitching in an affiliated game, and I think we can understand that he\u2019s going to have to pitch in multiple games before he\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cubs aren\u2019t at the point where they can confidently count on Steele, 31, for late September and, they hope, the postseason. But the potential availability of Steele, particularly in the postseason where the focus is on collective outs from the pitching staff rather than innings needed from starters, is intriguing if he\u2019s able to show enough in his rehab outings that he can be counted on to get big-league outs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s me probably pushing the envelope a little too much just trying to get back as fast as possible, trying to skip steps and stuff, but everything\u2019s been going good this go around,\u201d Steele said. \u201cProbably feel better this go around than I did the first time so it\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t pitched in a while, definitely going to have the adrenaline and stuff that I haven\u2019t been able to feel in quite some time, so it\u2019s going to be exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cubs will continue to be deliberately careful in Steele\u2019s build-up process, even with an eye on a reliever role. Right-hander Ben Brown (stress reaction in neck) is closer to returning than Steele. Brown will also throw live batting practice on Tuesday and fly back to Chicago with the team. The expectation, if he feels good, is that a rehab assignment would follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 Left-hander Justin Steele had this Chicago Cubs series in Arizona circled for a while. Steele\u2019s journey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[22,5,734,138,24,4245,161,62127,96106,29966,2540,393,4,256],"class_list":["post-787641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-cubs","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-baseball","tag-ben-brown","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicagocubs","tag-cubs","tag-cubs-bullpen","tag-cubs-injured-pitchers","tag-cubs-rotation","tag-injured-list","tag-justin-steele","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117153741365718840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787641","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=787641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}