Jordan Wicks still trying to prove he belongs in Cubs' rotation

What could’ve been Jordan Wicks‘ first full season in the majors hasn’t gone his way.

Between a left forearm strain suffered at the end of April and a right oblique strain that put him back on the shelf in mid-June, Wicks has been limited to just 11 appearances in 2024 (and only 10 starts). Wicks has the pedigree as the Chicago Cubs‘ 2021 first-round MLB Draft pick who moved quickly through the system and made his debut a little over two years later.

This was supposed to be a season where he could and establish himself as a member of the Cubs’ rotation moving forward. Instead, it’s been a season of lost development for Wicks, and it’s been a season where the team hasn’t been able to count on him to help them win ballgames.

Wicks has been healthy and pitching since the start of the month, but a few days prior, Cubs manager Craig Counsell was asked how he views the 25-year-old southpaw, in terms of where he fits on the roster with all the time lost. Counsell was honest in acknowledging that “I think competing for starts and for a spot is kind of where he’s at.”

That’s not the ideal spot to be in a year after making your big league debut, but Wicks certainly doesn’t disagree with his skipper’s assessment.

“It’s 100 percent true,” Wicks told CHGO. “I definitely believe that I’ve still got a lot to prove and a lot to do to fight for a spot. All I can do is, each day, come in here and try and iron out one thing after another and try and get a little bit better at each thing, because if I try and look at the whole big picture at once, it’s just too much to look at at one time. So, for me, it’s just breaking things down into smaller bits, and then just kind of attacking them one by one.”

So far, Wicks’ return to health hasn’t produced stellar results.

In his first start back on Sept. 1, he allowed just one run over five innings in Washington, but across all four of his starts this month, he’s posted a 7.50 ERA. That includes his outing in Los Angeles last Wednesday, where he gave up seven runs over three frames as the Dodgers tagged him for four home runs, and his start Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, where he gave up another three homers (accounting for four runs) over five innings in the 4-3 loss to the Oakland A’s.

Postgame Tuesday, Wicks attributed the cluster of home runs over his last two outings to command issues and making mistakes in the zone, saying, “I think I’m a lot to blame for those, and I understand that. I wear that, and I’m just going to go back to work this week and try and improve it.”

In particular, Wicks hasn’t quite gotten a great feel for his offspeed stuff. The main issue in his start against the Dodgers, he told CHGO, was that he showed early on he wasn’t able to land a lot of his offspeed offerings, and “whenever they see that, they just sit dead-red fastball, and that’s way too good of a lineup to allow them to do that.”

He did note after his start Tuesday against the A’s that he felt better about his changeup, but he hopes just continuing to get in-game reps will help get him back on track.

“For me, it’s just making progress,” Wicks said. “Getting the offspeed stuff kind of back where it was before I went on the IL. I think once we get that back, everything will kind of fall into place. I think it’s been the biggest kind of boulder so far is just getting that back. That hasn’t been as good as it was when I went on the IL, but it’s getting better and better each time. I feel good about where we’re at, and I feel like we just keep progressing, really.”

It’s going to be a process to get there, of course, considering all the time he’s missed.

That process started during his time on the shelf, including when he was rehabbing down at the team’s facility in Arizona. Wicks said he tried to take it one day at a time, finding one thing to try and get better at each day. The oblique injury made it tougher, because there isn’t a lot you can do in the beginning while you let it heal. It can be a tricky injury, which made it frustrating because Wicks naturally wanted to get going right away and instead had to wait for the healing process to happen.

Being patient with the process will be important as he moves forward with the Cubs, too.

Wicks is aware of his current standing on the team. Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon are mainstays in the rotation, Shota Imanaga has had a stellar first season in the majors and Javier Assad has really been productive with the opportunity to start all season. There are other potential starting options — like Ben Brown, Hayden Wesneski and Cade Horton — already in the organization, and who knows what moves the front office might make to add to the rotation in the offseason?

Nothing is guaranteed for Wicks, and he understands that. For him, it’s been frustrating that he hasn’t had a bunch of success in this last month before the season ends, and with the Cubs’ playoff hopes nearly depleted, he likely won’t have an opportunity to show what he can do on a postseason stage.

In that case, it’ll be a long offseason of him working to get back to the pitcher that he and the Cubs believe he can be. And then, hopefully by the start of next year, he’s proven to those in charge he belongs in the rotation.

“You want to come back after that time and pick right back up where you left off,” Wicks said. “The reality is, not pitching in games for basically three months, it takes a toll on you. It has an effect. That’s the truth. For me, it’s about trying to get back to where I was, but focusing on it one day at a time and not thinking, ‘Oh, I gotta do it immediately.'”