Edward

Cabrera

Cabrera won’t be back this weekend, but he will still be eligible for the NL Wild Card series.

Cabrera came in during the seventh with the Cubs down 4-3 and eventually gave up a two-run homer to Drake Baldwin in the ninth. But that’s pretty much par for the course here. There’s hope that Cabrera will be of use to the Cubs as a reliever in October, but he’s probably not the answer in the closer’s role.

Cabrera will operate out of Chicago’s bullpen for the rest of the season. His stuff should play up in shorter relief stints, and he could emerge as an important weapon over the final two weeks. It’s not out of the question that he could factor into the Cubs’ closing mix with Jacob Webb struggling recently, though that’s far from a guarantee considering Cabrera has never really pitched in relief before. He’s the type of talent who could thrive out of the bullpen if he manages to stay healthy.

The Cubs have said that they intend to bring Cabrera back in a relief role, so it was interesting to see that the right-hander ramped up his velocity to 99.3 mph on his four-seamer and touched 100 a few times. He threw 71 percent of his pitches for strikes and posted a 19 percent swinging strike rate while striking out one and not walking a single batter. He threw 21 pitches in this one and might only need one more rehab appearance (if at all) if the Cubs are truly planning to use him as a reliever. Given the state of their bullpen, there’s even a chance he could push for save opportunities.

Cabrera has battled through numerous injuries during his Chicago debut. He’s likely to miss a couple weeks with a finger blister that cropped up while he was getting torched for seven runs over 3 2/3 innings against the Cardinals over the weekend. He’s basically off fantasy radar screens at this point with just a few weeks left in the season. It sounds like he’s headed to the bullpen one he’s back from the injured list.

Cubs fans would probably prefer he didn’t. Cabrera, who missed time back in May with a blister, is due to face the Mariners next weekend, but the team has flexibility after the off day Thursday.

Cabrera was ineffective from the jump, allowing six hits and issuing three walks against two strikeouts before being pulled. It’s worth noting that it was his first start after being activated off the injured list because of his hamstring strain, but Cabrera has not been a consistent option before that injury, and he now has a 5.88 ERA on the season. He’ll get a chance to improve those numbers Saturday against the Mariners in Seattle.

The 28-year-old hurler will rejoin the Cubs’ rotation on Sunday afternoon against the Cardinals. Cabrera holds a 5.10 ERA, 1.40 WHIP and a 65/29 K/BB ratio across 72 1/3 innings in 14 starts with the Cubs this season.

Cabrera hasn’t been strong enough this year to be an easy start against the Cardinals in his first stint off the IL, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he pitched well either. He struck out seven in five scoreless innings in a tune-up on Tuesday at Double-A Knoxville.

No word on Cabrera’s velocity during the 64-pitch outing since this one was in a Double-A ballpark, but the results were certainly impressive. He looked sharp his last time out, tossing four shutout frames for Triple-A Iowa last week. It seems highly likely that he’ll be ready to return to Chicago’s rotation early next week.