Cubs Injury Update: Bryant Takes BP, May Be Activated Friday

Kris Bryant took batting practice at Wrigley prior to Tuesday’s game with the Tigers and is eligible to return from the 10-day DL, but the Cubs will probably wait until Friday to activate him. This is more or less in keeping with Joe Maddon’s common tactic of holding an everyday player out of the lineup in a game prior to an off-day.

The Cubs have this brief holiday series with the Tigers sandwiched between two free days, which is a welcome reprieve after playing 17 games in as many days. And the offense clicking like it has lately means there’s no pressure to rush Bryant back. After all, it’s trying to push things that landed him on the DL in the first place.

Giving him that additional day off and maybe keeping him from his natural inclination to get in the cage and swing, swing, swing can only help Bryant moving forward.

In other injury news, Carl Edwards Jr. made another rehab appearance with AAA Iowa Monday night and the results were not good. They were downright brutal, actually, with Edwards giving up a hit and walking two batters while hitting another en route to allowing two earned runs. He recorded only two outs, just like in his first outing, and threw 19 pitches.

While Edwards’ velocity has remained in the mid-90’s, his control has just been terrible. He missed high and wide to the glove side on the fastball with alarming frequency and has thrown only 16 of 38 pitches, including only six of 18 Tuesday, for strikes.

The Cubs may need to give him one more outing to get right and tighten up those control issues before activating him. As with Bryant, this is a case where the rest for the big league club help tremendously.