Cubs Roster Moves; Ross and Richard off DL, Cahill on

It was an active day on the roster as the Cubs made several moves. As reported by Cubs.com, David Ross was activated off the 7-day DL and Munenori Kawasaki was officially optioned to triple A Iowa in order to make room for Ross.

Trevor Cahill was placed on the 15-day DL – retroactive to July 9 – with what’s being described as tendinitis in his right knee. Trevor, like many of the pitchers in the Cubs’ bullpen, has struggled in July, giving up 4 runs and 7 hits over six innings of play. It sounds like this injury may have contributed to Cahill’s troubles with Joe Maddon stating that he’s been fighting the sore knee for a while.

RHP Trevor Cahill has been placed on the 15-day DL (retroactive to 7/9) with patellar tendinitis in his right knee. pic.twitter.com/sdomSscRHZ

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) July 15, 2016

As noted in the Cubs tweet above (and the stunningly coy headline) Clayton Richard has also been activated by the Cubs. He was on a rehab stint with double A Tennessee and triple A Iowa, where he made four starts – although only averaging slightly over three innings per start. I’m not sure you’d call that getting completely stretched out as much as just getting in some solid innings. 

We’re hoping that the extra innings has helped Richard get over whatever it was that was causing him to pitch pretty poorly prior to his DL stint. For the season, he has a towering 7.30 ERA and 5.00 xFIP. That’s really high in case you were wondering. So high, that some Cubs fans were starting to wonder how much longer he’d stay up with the Cubs, who, at this point, don’t have many options when it comes to left-handed specialists out of the pen.