Sogard took mound despite injured thumb, goes on IL
The Cubs placed infielder Eric Sogard on the 10-day injured list Tuesday with a left-thumb contusion. Sergio Alcantara, sent down a few days ago, returned from Iowa and started at second base against the Phillies.
"Groundball to third, hit him on the thumb," Cubs managed David Ross said. "Pretty swollen last night, came in, docs felt like he was going to be down for three, four, five days. It made sense to get somebody here with the all-star break coming up."
What's interesting is Sogard suffered the injury, then came on to pitch in the ninth inning of Monday's 13-3 loss. The right-handed Sogard has now pitched 5 innings this season and gave up runs for the first time Monday when he surrendered home runs to Rhys Hoskins and Alec Bohm.
After the game, Ross was asked if bringing in Sogard to pitch (again) was starting to get ridiculous.
"No, that's called conserving your pitching and bullpen," Ross said. "Look, you don't go into any game wanting to use Eric Sogard. That's not on the radar.
"The bullpen has been extremely taxed. That's just strategy of baseball trying to move on to the next game. That game's well out of hand and we're trying to plan for a long season and at some point turn this thing around and ride that bullpen again."
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