You Are Craig Counsell. Get 27 Outs Today. Good Luck.

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

It's about to get a little nutty at Wrigley Field. The Cubs have managed to win four games in a row this week, flipping the narrative that had begun to surround a rocky start to the season. However, even as they've done so, they've been further depleted by injury. Matthew Boyd and Cade Horton have already been sidelined for a fortnight. One by one, though, they've also lost a number of key relievers: Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey, Ethan Roberts, and Daniel Palencia. That was after starting the season down Jordan Wicks and Porter Hodge, the latter of whom will miss the entire season after undergoing elbow surgery. At Triple-A Iowa, starter Jaxon Wiggins and reliever Gavin Hollowell have also been sidelined.

As a result, the team already has several pitchers in the mix to whom they were hoping not to turn until summer. The latest addition, righty Corbin Martin, was with the team on a minor-league deal and joins the 40-man roster at the expense of Horton, who was transferred to the 60-day injured list to make room. Now, however, Martin can't be optioned back to the minors without being exposed to waivers. The team didn't want to recall him this soon, since that makes it much more likely that they'll lose him amid a roster crunch sometime soon. They had little choice, though.

Thus, starter Javier Assad takes the ball Sunday, with a simple task: eat some innings. The Cubs' bullpen has just four (Jacob Webb, Caleb Thielbar, Hoby Milner and Ben Brown) of the eight members with whom they began the season. They're missing their top three right-handed options, and Brown (who became the de facto righty relief ace when Palencia went down) threw 38 pitches Saturday to secure their win over New York. Webb's combination of recent usage and wavering effectiveness will make Craig Counsell unlikely to turn to him with much enthusiasm in the late innings. Other than Thielbar and Milner, the team has no one fresh whom you want trying to hold a lead Sunday.

Pitcher	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	TOT
Brown, B	0	17	0	0	38	55
Webb, J	15	0	0	25	0	40
Thielbar	18	0	0	0	14	32
Milner	0	10	0	10	0	20
Little	0	19	0	0	0	19
Martin, R.	6	0	0	12	0	18
Rolison	11	0	0	0	0	11
Martin, C.	0	0	0	0	0	0

Assad himself is the team's seventh starting pitching option. He'll be asked, however, to pitch more like a No. 3: soak up innings and keep the team in the game. As long as he can do so, Counsell can piece together the final three-plus innings without overusing Ryan Rolison or Corbin Martin.

Martin (the righty, not to be confused with the younger, optionable, left-handed Riley Martin) showed impressive stuff in his brief time with Iowa. His cut-ride fastball and knuckle-curve make a fascinating pair, and though he's thrown them just a few times, his sinker and changeup show startling amounts of arm-side run coming from his arm slot and branching from his main arsenal.

That only makes it more important that the team not ask him to throw 45 pitches to get them six or seven outs. With Palencia and Harvey, especially, likely to be out for a while, the team badly needs right-handed relief depth, and Martin looks capable of being a solid middle reliever. Losing him before the end of April would put them at real risk of bullpen collapse. 

Counsell needs Assad to get him into the sixth inning Sunday, so he can mix and match and keep the pitch counts on each of the relievers he uses low. A lefty-heavy bullpen is a small problem. One running out of options altogether is a larger one, and it's a problem the team is on the cusp of running into at full speed, early in a long season. For a little while, every pitching appearance will be higher-leverage than it seems, because the team will have a need that reaches beyond that day: for the pitcher to come through the outing healthy, and for them to get the number of outs Counsell is asking for, so they don't stretch a thin staff past its breaking point.

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[Development DL]

 I am excited to see them find solutions, by having players take advantage of the opportunities adversity brings , along side your well described challenges . 

Today the execution of said implementation was spot on .i believe Counsell excels in this environment .  Informative and interesting work . . You do Prospectus proud .