Yu Darvish has not thrown since he had a setback in a rehab start over a week ago, and it sounds highly unlikely that we will see him on the mound again for the Chicago Cubs before the trade deadline.
In an appearance on 670 The Score’s “Mully & Hanley Show” Thursday, Cubs pitching coach Jim Hickey said Darvish could potentially return later this month but a more “realistic” timeline would be early August.
“It’ll be right at the (July 31) trade deadline that I think we’ll see him,” Hickey said. “So it’s optimistic to say that. It’s realistic to say one month from now but optimistic to say before the trade deadline.”
Darvish allowed just one run in five innings while making a start for Low-A South Bend on June 25, but he said afterword that his injured triceps is not 100 percent. Despite that, Hickey insists the right-hander “feels fine.”
“It is status quo, but he does feel good,” the pitching coach said. “He feels fine. As soon as he begins to start throwing the baseball again, we’re going to have to go through a little bit of a progression of building up the arm strength and then go through the same thing we did before with a bullpen, a simulated game, probably going out on a rehab assignment.
“Things look good going forward, but it’s still going to be a little bit.”
Darvish is 1-3 with a 4.95 ERA in eight starts this season. The Cubs are currently just a game behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central, so having Darvish fully healthy for the stretch run is the priority. While the latest news surrounding Darvish hasn’t been all that promising, Chicago is probably just playing it safe.
