Article: How Long Will Cubs Be Without Seiya Suzuki, and How Do They Fill His Spot?

[Matthew Trueblood]

Halfway through a successful but fragile-feeling April, the Chicago Cubs have to weather a major shakeup in their lineup. Their star right fielder (and perhaps their best overall hitter) will be gone for a while.

Image courtesy of © Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

It felt ominous, early Monday morning, when Jesse Rogers reported that the Cubs were calling up outfielder Alexander Canario to meet the team in Arizona. Canario is off to a decent start with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs, but he wasn't first in line for a promotion based purely on performance. If the team only wanted to lengthen or reshape its bench, rehabbing veteran Patrick Wisdom would have been reinstated from his assignment to the I-Cubs.

That's still coming, but it will wait a day or two. This can't. Seiya Suzuki suffered a strained right oblique, and has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Canario was the call-up, then, because the Cubs specifically need an outfielder to stop the gap left by Suzuki's absence. The good news is that, in Canario, they have what they hope will be a viable big-league corner outfielder, and that (unlike last year, when David Ross tried to patch similar holes by starting Wisdom, Miles Mastrobuoni, and Trey Mancini in right field) Craig Counsell recognized the need for a legitimate replacement for Suzuki. The very, very bad news, of course, is that Canario isn't nearly an adequate replacement for the Japanese star, who was the everyday No. 2 hitter and most well-rounded offensive threat the team had.

Last year, a similar injury to his other side shelved Suzuki for nearly six weeks, but that was early in spring training, when teams are likely to slow-play treatment of such maladies a bit more. Over the last four years, the average time missed for oblique strains is about a week less than that, around 34 days. That could put Suzuki back in the lineup in time for a crucial stretch in mid- and late May, when the Cubs welcome in Atlanta and then go on a Memorial Day road trip to St. Louis and Milwaukee.

Still, it's an excruciating loss, for however long it lasts. The team will be much more dependent, now, on Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, Christopher Morel, and Michael Busch, the latter of whom is one candidate to slide up in the batting order by more than one spot in response to this shift. Canario figures to platoon with Mike Tauchman in right field for the time being.

You have to think the Cubs would have liked to be in a position to call up Pete Crow-Armstrong on this occasion, sliding Bellinger over to right field. Crow-Armstrong is off to a manically aggressive start at the plate, though, and doesn't look like a credible big-league hitter right now. Given the offense the Cubs need from anyone tasked with replacing Suzuki, that made Crow-Armstrong a non-option here. It does remain possible, of course, that he'll make a couple of key adjustments and be ready to step into the void before Suzuki is ready to return. In the meantime, this is Canario's chance to shine.

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How hopeful are you that the Cubs can survive this loss? What do you want to see Counsell do to manage the situation? Join the discusssion with a comment below.

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[painhertz]

Good luck, Alexander!

[Billy62]

Well Matt, I think this injury or at least I am hoping will be a short stint on the IL. Maybe even just the 10 games. A loss to be certain, but not something the team can't overcome. With Canario coming up and Busch absolutely on fire as of late, I remain hopefully optimistic for the next week and a half. If Bellinger starts to heat up and Morel and Happ start swinging a little better. Suzuki's spot in the lineup might not be missed short term. It's still a hard loss since he was swinging the bat so well. But if it remains just short-term, we should be okay.