There was a lot of excitement when outfielder Michael Hermosillo finally got his opportunity to play with the Cubs this season. After tearing it up at Triple-A Iowa, the lifelong Cubs fan finally got his chance to play for his hometown team.
Unfortunately, Hermosillo’s the feel-good story won’t have a happy ending this season as the Cubs put the 26-year-old outfielder on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday with a left forearm strain. The timeline for Hermosillo’s Grade 3 strain is around four weeks, ending his first season in Chicago.
“Yeah, just like super unfortunate,” Hermosillo said before Wednesday’s game against the Reds. “Super sad that opportunity gets cut short. But it is what it is. Just bounce back from it.”
Hermosillo injured the left forearm on Friday against the Pirates as he reached back to touch home plate while sliding. The injury got progressively worse in the days that followed as he tried to work through the soreness.
But after considerable swelling and bruising in the area confirmation of the damage in the forearm, the team ultimately made the decision to put Hermosillo on the shelf.
“It’s pretty significant,” Hermosillo said. “Obviously, not surgery. Like it will completely heal, but just for the level of the injury and like the pain I felt didn’t really match up to the same extent [to] something that I could just ride through and play through.”
Hermosillo didn’t waste his chance he got with the Cubs and after putting together the best season of his career in the minors, he showed those same tools in the big leagues.
Not only did he show he could play an above-average center field, he also flashed the power that he tapped into more this season with a .500 slugging percentage with two doubles, three home runs and seven RBIs in 16 games.
As the Cubs try to forge a plan for the future, the last few months have been a job audition for several players. Hermosillo is hoping he’s done enough to be on the team’s radar in 2022.
“I definitely love it here,” he said. “Love the guys. Love the management. They’ve helped me a lot. Even analytically, just some of the information that I’ve been able to apply to my game, on the hitting side of things and the guys who run the stuff over here just been able to like improve on the stuff that I was kind of already working on with the Angels, but just to a better, more consistent level.
“I think there’s some things that I hopefully showed that will put that in the back of their head. But at the end of the day, just keep doing what I’m doing regardless.”
Hermosillo will spend the rest of the week with the team before heading off to Arizona to continue his rehab. But he’s not going to waste the time he has left.
“I’m just gonna soak in as [many] remaining conversations as I can,” Hermosillo said. “We were talking about facing [Wade] Miley yesterday. Even though I wasn’t in the game, just conversations like that where I’m like, ‘That’s a solid conversation that I can apply next year if I get to face that guy.’ So gonna take in all those conversations and just enjoy the time around teammates, the coaches [and] enjoy the fans.”
