Column: Chicago Cubs can survive even if Marcus Stroman doesn’t return from his mysterious rib injury

In any other year, Marcus Stroman’s potential season-ending rib cartilage fracture would’ve had Chicago Cubs fans crying, “Why us?”

But this has been a season unlike any other in recent Cubs history, a roller-coaster ride that no one could’ve seen coming back in spring training. They buried themselves on June 8 in Anaheim, Calif., falling 10 games under .500, only to bounce back into contention in the National League Central and wild-card race.

Though the Cubs were only three games over .500 entering Wednesday’s City Series finale against the White Sox, the atmosphere in Wrigleyville matched the giddiness of the summer of 2015, the turning point of Theo Epstein’s vaunted rebuild.

So if anyone is worried the possible absence of Stroman for the final seven weeks of the season has spoiled the Cubs’ chances of making a postseason run, they mostly have kept their thoughts to themselves.

Funny how that works.

Two months ago Stroman was leading the league in earned-run average and on his way to an All-Star appearance and another big free-agent payday once he opted out of the final year of his three-year, $71 million contract. When he started a conversation on Twitter in early June about the Cubs’ refusal to talk about an extension during the season, fans rushed to his defense and demanded management give the ace whatever he wanted.

But a poor start in London against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 25 was only the start of Stroman’s struggles, and by the time he went on the 15-day injury list with a hip injury Aug. 1 he had become the weak link of the rotation.

A mental reset was supposed to cure all his ills, but then came the mysterious injury that had everyone confused, from doctors to the manager to the front office.

“We had no idea what it was,” President Jed Hoyer said Wednesday. “It’s not your usual pitching injury. It’s not an arm. It’s not a shoulder. It’s not an elbow.”

We don’t know how the rib injury happened or when he possibly can return or what’s going on in Stroman’s head. It’s basically what Lou Piniella might have called a “Cubbie Occurrence,” the kind of baseball oddity that the Cubs seem to have a patent on.

Hoyer said the Cubs had no time to “wallow” in the news and that they had the pitching depth to get through it. Manager David Ross said Drew Smyly likely would return to the rotation after his recent demotion to the bullpen. Javier Assad, who on Wednesday made his third start since Aug. 5, already had proved he deserved a spot.

Hoyer said he felt “comfortable in house,” meaning he didn’t plan to bring anyone up to audition in a pennant race.

“He hasn’t been pitching for us,” he said of Stroman. “We didn’t lose a pitcher that was active. We lost a guy we thought was pitching today who was on the IL. We’ll move forward with the guys we have right now. Obviously when you’re in a pennant race, you react differently than you would if you were not. So if that comes to it, we’ll make those decisions. But right now we don’t have to make those decisions.”

The Cubs can survive without Stroman. In fact they already have.

His struggles began in late June, which coincided with the team’s return from the dead. The “Stro Show” did not really factor into the resurgence. The hope was that a healthy and rejuvenated Stroman would make the Cubs even better, but if he came back and continued to struggle, it would’ve been tough for Ross to pull him from the rotation down the stretch, as he did with Smyly.

Still, counting on Smyly to turn things around is an exceedingly optimistic outlook. And as good as Assad has been, he’s still young and untested. Veterans Kyle Hendricks and Jameson Taillon have experience on playoff teams, and Ross will need both to pick it up a notch down the stretch to back up the uber-consistent Justin Steele, a Cy Young Award candidate.

This is not exactly a do-or-die season for the Cubs, but after all this team has gone through it would be deflating to end the season without a trip to October. Hoyer rolled the dice at the trade deadline by keeping Stroman and Cody Bellinger, knowing both could leave as free agents after the season.

Bellinger was the bigger risk because he would’ve netted a nicer return in prospects. If the Cubs don’t make the playoffs and Bellinger gets away, it would be lose-lose for Hoyer, who called him the “centerpiece” of the team’s playoff push.

Did he look at it as a huge gamble?

“Winning is better than not winning,” Hoyer said, sounding as if he were auditioning for a job with Obvious Shirts. “I feel like that’s the goal. If you said at the beginning of the year he was going to play great … and if you take away the fact he missed a month he’s in the MVP race and somewhere in the top four or five guys. If you said we’d be winning and he’d do that, I’d sign up for that all day.

“Certainly there is a cost associated with not being able to trade him, but the reason we do this is to win. The reason we signed him is to come in and play like this. When you look at it that way, it’s pretty easy and it was a pretty simple decision. And I’m glad he’s still here.”

If Stroman can come back and contribute this season, it might be considered a bonus. But the Cubs can’t count on that, so Hoyer must be ready to audible with the rotation if things go south.

In essence, a weird season just got a little bit weirder, which used to be the norm on the North Side. This was the Cubs Way some of us grew up with and learned to love.

Welcome back, old friend.

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