Top-100 Cubs Prospect Leaves Game with Injury
Well, this stinks. Chicago Cubs outfield prospect Kevin Alcántara extended his on-base streak during Wednesday’s South Bend Cubs game against the West Michigan Whitecaps, but the 21-year-old unfortunately exited early with an apparent leg injury.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Alcántara hit a double to left field, but he felt something wrong running to first base. After a brief convo at second base, Alcántara came out of the game.
Jacob Wetzel came in to pinch-run and take over center field for Alcántara. Still no word from the team on Alcántara’s status and you obviously hope it’s a minor issue like a leg cramp.
Alcántara has been on fire at the plate since June and that continued Wednesday, when he went 3-for-3, with a stolen base and a run scored. So far in July, Alcántara has put up a slash line of .359/.444/.615, a 1.059 OPS, leading to a 196 wRC+.
If you go back to the beginning of June, Alcántara has a 167 wRC+ in 140 plate appearances, slashing .323/.400/.548, with 6 home runs, 27 RBI, 24 runs, adding 8 doubles and a triple in 33 games.
On Wednesday, Alcántara extended his on-base streak to 23 games. From June 17-July 18, the center fielder had a slash line of .351/.451/.662, which gave the 21-year-old a 208 wRC+. That’s going up after his 3-for-3 game and again hopefully this is a minor injury that doesn’t stop Alcántara’s momentum in 2023.
The outfielder started the season rated as a top-100 prospect on both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline’s lists. After a few updated re-rankings this season, Alcántara was completely dropped off both top-100 prospects lists, but with his recent stretch, MLB Pipeline did put the Cubs prospect back in.
Alcántara is now up to a 115 wRC+ this season.