Why Jose Quintana's thumb injury is a gut punch to Cubs' bullpen

When Cubs manager David Ross met via Zoom earlier this week in his first chat with beat writers since March, he raved about how ready his five-man starting rotation appeared to be and - more important, he said - how much he liked sixth man Alec Mills as a swingman who could provide important length in the bullpen.

All of a sudden, with the news of starter Jose Quintana's thumb injury to his pitching hand, Mills is the presumptive fill-in for the rotation. And just like that a bullpen full of new faces and uncertainty is a man down before summer training camp even starts.

The Cubs don't even have all their COVID-19 intake test results back, and an old-fashioned, off-field, dish-washing injury is the first threat to the sweet part of what looked like potentially a short but sweet 2020 season.

With only 60 games on the schedule, bullpens around baseball already figured to be disproportionate difference makers for success in a season too short to take the traditional month to figure out roles or to reconfigure through trades and other acquisitions.

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It looked like an especially big challenge to a first-year manager such as Ross.

Rookie Adbert Alzolay, who had mixed results in a brief debut last summer, could be in play to move up a notch and play a contributing role as a long man, with a handful of 2020 newcomers also in the mix to stretch out for possible long roles.

Quintana, who required five stitches to close a cut suffered while washing dishes Saturday at home in Miami, underwent "microscopic surgery" on the left hand Monday to further determine the extent of the injury, at which point a cut to a "digital sensory nerve" was discovered and repaired.

The Cubs said the plan is for him to remain shut down for two weeks before resuming any throwing and then be re-evaluated. That likely pushes his debut in a best-case scenario into at least mid-August. 

But the uncertainty at the outset and the sensitive nature of the area of injury suggests his already short season could be in jeopardy with any setback or adjustment to the timeline.

The Cubs open training camp Friday at Wrigley Field with the season scheduled to start July 23 or 24.

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Why Jose Quintanas thumb injury is a gut punch to Cubs bullpen originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

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