Jeff Samardzija is back with the Chicago Cubs, and back in the bullpen. After nothing but starts since his demotion in May, the now stretched-out righty will be working middle-ish relief for the big club.

While in Iowa, Samardzija handled the Pacific Coast League without much difficulty, but it wasn’t about the numbers. The Cubs sent Samardzija down, essentially to improve on his secondary pitches. The result is a curveball that had been shelved in favor of a slider. The split-fingered fastball remains in the repertoire, along with the two-seam fastball. Samardzija does throw a four-seam heater, but it’s the moving two-seamer (more tail than sink) that regularly reaches the upper 90s that has been the main ingredient of Samardzija’s success — limited as that may be.

Down Goes Ascanio

Paying the price for Samardzija’s promotion was Jose Ascanio, who will likely get stretched back out in rejoin the Iowa rotation. Samardzija was working seven and eight innings a pop in June, we’ll see if and when Ascanio gets that far.

I can’t imagine this yo-yo experience is great for young pitchers such as Ascanio and Samardzija. I suspect if we see Ascanio again this season it will be after a similar run of starts. He’ll come back in the every-fifth-day rhythm and be whip-sawed back to getting up-and-down in the bullpen.

Ascanio didn’t pitch all that well in the majors, so I’m not really crying about his demotion. Samardzija, by virtue of his demotion, has worked more than twice as many innings as Ascanio in 2009 (MLB and PCL). Here are some of their key rate stats, PCL, major league equivalents for those PCL numbers (MLE) and their MLB numbers. Also included are their innings totals (PCL/MLB).

Jeff Samardzija (67.7/4.3)
    PCL   MLE   MLB
HR9 1.2   1.6   0.0
BB9 2.7   3.3   4.2
SO9 7.0   6.2  10.4

Jose Ascanio (26.7/15.3)
    PCL   MLE   MLB
HR9 0.0   0.0   0.6
BB9 2.3   2.9   5.3
SO9 8.7   7.6  10.6

Sources: Baseball Reference and Minor League Splits

Ascanio, a former Brave, is destined to be a former Cub. His power arm is enough to get plenty of looks around the majors, but he hasn’t pitched consistently enough to scratch his way into a secure job in Chicago.

Shark Won’t Sink

Samardzija, with his whole narrative (local-ish, Notre Dame, football, big contract) is here to stay. Again. If he’s discarded his slider altogether, I won’t be too surprised. The curve only looks to be a couple MPH slower, but has that “hump” in it along with top-spin he’s never approached with his slider. In other words, he didn’t get slurvey, it’s a different pitch. You’d have to ask Samardzija or one of the pitching coaches to be sure.

With that in mind, I’m still looking for the slider to make an appearance. As a reliever, I can’t imagine he will be able to keep too many pitches sharp — especially given his track record. I expect sinker/splitter/curve with a few four-seamers mixed in (it’s nice pitch to entice hitters with up and out of the zone).