The Chicago Cubs might get one of their starting pitchers back sooner than later. According to Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Sun Times, righty Javier Assad is progressing smoothly in his recovery from a strained left oblique.

In his report, Gonzales noted that Assad threw a 40-pitch bullpen on March 22 and will face hitters in live batting practice sessions as the next step in his progression. Assad was placed on the 15-day injured list on March 17, so he’s about halfway through the process. However, Opening Day is Thursday, so unless Assad’s oblique rapidly improves in the next few days, he’s likely to begin the season on the injured list and miss one to two starts.

If Assad is unable to make his first start of the season the first time the Cubs run through the rotation, the club has right-handed pitchers Ben Brown and Colin Rea as candidates to take over the fifth starter role. FanGraphs lists Assad as having two minor league options remaining, so if he requires more time to build up his pitch count, that is an alternative route the Cubs could utilize to get his body and arm back into game shape.

He can also make a couple of appearances out of the bullpen at the MLB level. The Cubs are likely to take the former course of action. Assad performed well in his first season as a primary starting pitcher in 2024, throwing a career-high 147 innings with a 3.73 ERA. Last year, he threw his sinker 35.4 percent of the time, substantially more than any of his other six pitches. His cutter was the subsequent highest-used pitch, thrown 547 times for a percentage of 21.6.