Cubs ready to 'chill' with Kyle Schwarber injury

Kyle Schwarber admitted Friday it’s hard to be patient. He wants to be playing with his Cubs teammates as they try to close in on the franchise’s first playoff berth since 2008.

For now, however, he has to sit and watch.

“Nothing to rush. There’s been some nagging injuries along with some of our players,” Schwarber said. “Don’t want to hurt the team in any way possible, if I get reinjured. Don’t want to hurt myself by any means but I’m going to try to get back in there as soon as I can.”

The Cubs said Friday that an MRI showed Schwarber has a mild strain of his right rib cage. He’s out for the three-game weekend series with Arizona and could miss next week’s set with St. Louis, where he’ll be evaluated again.

Share Events on The CubeAnd though the Cubs would love to have his bat in the lineup, they’re playing it safe with Schwarber.

“We’ll just wait a couple days. Let it cool down and then we’ll try to figure out exactly where it’s taking us,” manager Joe Maddon said. “When you talk to him he wants to play today, of course, but we’re going to just chill a little bit right now, figure it out and then we’ll go on from there. We don’t anticipate too bad.”

As Maddon predicted, Schwarber was eager to play. He said he wanted to play Wednesday, and added if Friday were a playoff game he would be in the lineup.

Though, in this case, caution seems like the right idea.

Schwarber said he felt something grab Wednesday when he checked a swing during a session in the batting cage. He then continued swinging briefly and felt OK until checking another swing when he felt another grab, leading to him getting checked out.

“The big thing was Schwarbs shut it down immediately when he felt something,” Maddon said. “That was a good thing and didn’t continue to test it or try to do more, so we think it’s going to be… hopefully it’s going to be fine.”

That doesn’t mean waiting will be easy.

“It is a little bit frustrating but that’s part of the game,” said Schwarber, who wasn’t feeling any pain Friday. “You have to let your body heal (and) make sure you’re 100 percent because if you’re not 100 percent you’re hurting the team.”

At least the Cubs have some depth without Schwarber, boosted by Monday’s addition of Austin Jackson.

“We feel very fortunate that we did go ahead and do something like that,” Maddon said. “We talked about depth, which unfortunately has to be tested that quickly.”

Jackson is playing right field and batting second, with Chris Coghlan hitting third and playing left. Javier Baez starts at second and is sixth.