Chicago Cubs pitcher Justin Steele looks solid in rehab stint with Iowa
Justin Steele earned his first career Opening Day start in late March.
But the Chicago Cubs slinger left the game early with a hamstring injury and hadn’t played in a real game since.
That was until Wednesday when Steele – who finished fifth in the National League in Cy Young Award voting in 2023 – pitched just over three innings for the Iowa Cubs against Omaha.
“It was a good step in the process of building back up,” Steele said.
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Steele allowed three runs on six hits in 3.1 innings. Omaha managed just one walk and Steele struck out four. He threw 63 pitches, 41 of them for strikes.
The line looks worse than it is.
His first inning opened with three straight singles, but a couple of those were softly hit. After easing back into the swing of things, Steele struck out the fourth batter he faced. Omaha managed four hits and two runs in the first inning alone, and Steele locked it down with two hits, one run and one walk during the remainder of his outing.
“I felt like I was a little rusty in the beginning,” Steele said. “Started getting the rust off as I started throwing more pitches."
This is Steele’s first live game action since March, but he managed to get in some simulated games before his appearance in Des Moines. He went through extended spring training in Arizona and did a live batting practice back with the team in Chicago.
He didn’t need many games.
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With a hamstring injury, Steele was still able to throw throughout his rehab.
“It’s definitely helped with the volume of throwing,” Steele said. “I haven’t necessarily gotten tired once during this process, as far as volume of throws goes. That’s definitely helped that part of the process.”
Other than shaking off some rust, the 28-year-old pitcher looked close to pre-injury form in some regards. His velo hovered around 88-89 miles per hour, which is to be expected with the amount of time off. He wasn’t focused on that aspect of his pitch, anyway.
“I was more worried about the location of the pitch, what the pitch was doing and stuff,” Steele said. “I don’t even know what my average velocity was Opening Day, to be quite honest. But I guess it’s a good thing to be around what I was on Opening Day.”
All around, Steele felt good about his stint with the Iowa Cubs.
His stint in the Minors might be a short one. Steele thinks he may be headed back to Chicago now that Wednesday's game is in the books.
“I’m not completely sure yet. I think we’re leaning toward that, but I haven’t heard for sure confirmation yet.’
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Justin Steele update: Chicago Cubs pitcher solid in Iowa rehab stint
