ST. LOUIS \u2014 For the last seven weeks, the Chicago Cubs have navigated a rotation without their top two starting pitchers.<\/p>\n
While they won\u2019t be getting Justin Steele<\/a> back following season-ending elbow surgery, left-hander Shota Imanaga is slated to rejoin the rotation Thursday when the Cubs activate him from the injured list to start against the St. Louis Cardinals to cap the teams\u2019 first series of the year. Imanaga had a 2.82 ERA in eight starts before landing on the IL and will give the Cubs a boost.<\/p>\n Since Imanaga strained his left hamstring May 4<\/a> in Milwaukee, the Cubs have gone from 7 games above .500 to 15 over entering Monday\u2019s series at Busch Stadium. Collectively, the Cubs\u2019 starters produced a 4.46 ERA while Imanaga has been out, which includes the bulk outings by Ben Brown, Colin Rea and Cade Horton in the three games that had openers. It puts the group on the edge of the bottom third in ERA during that stretch, and their total 1.9 fWAR is 24th among starters.<\/p>\n Manager Craig Counsell was most impressed with one element of his team\u2019s management of Imanaga\u2019s absence: the rest of the rotation made all their starts.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if health seems like a compliment, but those guys taking the ball for the last seven weeks and staying healthy was critical for us and really important,\u201d Counsell said Monday. \u201cYou never feel out of the woods when it comes to health or when it comes to depth or things like that, but us getting through this stretch and our starters taking their turn every time was massively important.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we lost our off days, we all know that in terms of the schedule and had rougher weather and all that stuff, so they\u2019ve done a really nice job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n