The Chicago Cubs kept their training slate rolling on Saturday with a thorough 7-3 drubbing of their crosstown rival Chicago White Sox in Cactus League play.
This contest was notable because it marked the first appearance of the spring for their 29-year-old ace, Justin Steele. The lefty Steele took the mound for two innings, and he summarily struck out five White Sox hitters while allowing just two hits, no runs and no walks before departing with a pitch count of 28.
The encouraging aspect of his outing was that his strikeouts did not mostly come against minor league prospects getting their coffee at Big League camp.
Instead, Steele fanned Mike Tauchman, Miguel Vargas and Brandon Drury in the first inning while working around ground-ball singles surrendered to Luis Robert Jr. and Matt Thais.
In the second, Steele got highly touted White Sox prospect Colson Montgomery to swing and miss before doing the same thing to the team from the South Side’s new first baseman, Bobby Dalbec.
The southpaw ended his outing by inducing a soft ground ball out from Oscar Colás, his first instance of the season of retiring batters with his typical weak contact.
Steele’s performance on Saturday, while somewhat expected, is certainly a positive sign heading toward Opening Day, as the Cubs need their ace in top form for what is something of an all-in campaign for the organization.
The Kyle Tucker acquisition combined with his pending free agency and lack of contract extension makes this a must-contend year for Chicago, and the team will need Steele at his best for that to come to fruition.
Steele has been consistently excellent in every season since 2022, putting up ERAs of 3.18, 3.06 and 3.07 in the past three campaigns while making at least 24 starts and striking out more than a batter per inning every year.
Saturday’s five-strikeout, two-inning performance obviously does not guarantee any sort of uptick in Steele’s effectiveness in that regard, but it is worth tracking as the spring rolls on, as generating more swing-and-miss is really the last area for improvement available in Steele’s game.
Steele’s Baseball Savant page is filled with a whole lot of red bars, but he sits in the 35th percentile in whiff rate. His stuff is nasty enough to induce backward K’s, so his strikeout rate sits in the 60th percentile,
He generates enough spin on his slider and curveball to induce whiffs, so if he can find ways to make marginal improvements in that regard, Steele could ascend to the Cy Young tier of National League pitchers in a hurry.