Despite season-ending injury, Michael Hermosillo proud of first season with Cubs

There was a lot of excitement when outfielder Michael Hermosillo got his opportunity with the Cubs. After tearing it up at Triple-A Iowa, the lifelong Cubs fan finally got to play for his hometown team.

Unfortunately, Hermosillo’s feel-good story won’t have a happy ending after the Cubs put him on the 10-day injured list Wednesday with a strained left forearm. The timeline for Hermosillo’s Grade 3 strain is around four weeks, ending his first season in Chicago.

“Yeah, just super unfortunate,” Hermosillo said before the Cubs’ 4-1 victory in 10 innings against the Reds. “Super sad that the opportunity gets cut short. But it is what it is. Just bounce back from it.”

Hermosillo, 26, injured the forearm Friday against the Pirates as he reached back to touch the plate while sliding. The injury got worse in the days that followed as he tried to work through the soreness.

But after considerable swelling and bruising, the team decided to put Hermosillo on the shelf.

“It’s pretty significant,” Hermosillo said. “Obviously, not surgery. It will completely heal, but just the level of the injury and the pain I felt didn’t really match up to the same extent [with] something that I could just ride through and play through.”

Hermosillo didn’t waste his chance with the Cubs. After putting together the best season of his career in the minors, he displayed those same tools in the big leagues.

Not only did Hermosillo show he could play an above-average center field, he also flashed the power that he tapped into this season. Hermosillo had a .500 slugging percentage with two doubles, three home runs and seven RBI 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 did 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. The guys who run the stuff over here have been able to improve on the stuff that I was already working on with the Angels, but to a better, more consistent level.

“I think there are some things that I hopefully showed that will put that in the back of their head. But 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 I’m gonna take in all those conversations and just enjoy the time around teammates, the coaches [and] enjoy the fans.”