Cubs activate David Bote (ankle) from injured listRussell Dorseyon September 6, 2021 at 5:53 pm

The Cubs activated infielder David Bote from the 10-day injured list before Monday’s game against the Reds. Bote had been on the injured list since Aug. 28 with a sprained right ankle, he suffered stepping on a baseball.

Bote’s activation from the injured list came about an hour before first pitch after going through a full pregame routine, including taking batting practice, running the bases and taking ground balls on the infield.

Bote’s slashing .202/.270/.339 with eight homers an 32 RBIs in 78 games this season.

To make room for Bote on the active roster, the Cubs designated infielder Andrew Romine for assignment.

Infielder Nico Hoerner went through a full pregame routine of baseball activities with Bote and also took batting practice, ground balls ran the bases before the game. Hoerner has been on the IL since July 29 with a right oblique strain.

“They’re moving forward,” interim manager Andy Green said before the game. “David closer than Nico. I believe Nico was scheduled to take some BP on the field today. I haven’t gotten a report on how that went, hopefully went very well.”

Wicks makes minor-league starting debut

Cubs’ 2021 first-round pick Jordan Wicks made his professional debut on Sunday for High-A South Bend. Wicks, 22, tossed a scoreless inning, striking out one batter in the game. The Cubs drafted Wicks out of Kansas State University with the 21st overall pick in July.

The Cubs’ southpaw had been pitching at the team’s complex in Arizona since the draft, but will spend the final weeks of the season in South Bend.

“Every time you go to a new level, you get excited competing against new guys,” Wicks said in July. “Just the newness and the excitement of it and I’m excited for the new experiences to learn along the way.

“I’m excited to do it with such a world class organization – an organization with so much history. and to be able to get out there and to compete at a new level, compete against new players and to have this as your job is a childhood dream.”

He said it

Green on Cubs’ COVID-19 scare: “We’re hopeful, cautiously optimistic at this point, but we’re still hopeful. We have the three-to-five day window. Still right in kind of the prime of it when someone could potentially test positive as far as I know. This day, every one of the guys who have come in including myself and tested negative. So we haven’t seen it spread and I think if we clear tomorrow, that’s approaching the end of our testing window that would come back to us on Wednesday morning, the last day before the off day and if we’re clear all the way through there, we’ll continue to be as cautiously optimistic as all of us can be in a COVID world that we live in right now.”

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