(670 The Score) Cubs closer Brandon Morrow expects to throw off a mound in "less than two weeks" as he continues in his rehab after undergoing right elbow surgery in early November.
"Really good, just behind unfortunately," Morrow said of how he feels right now. "I'm kind of on a normal throwing progression. I just happened to start it a month later than I did last year.
"Everything has been on schedule as we had planned. I'm feeling good."
Morrow, 34, is expected to be sidelined through April. After a "boring" start to spring training in February, he has been incorporated into drills and begun throwing to bases in the past week in what he called "just kind of ramping up into a more normal schedule."
Morrow missed the second half of 2018 with what the team at the time first called a bone bruise in his biceps. When healthy, Morrow was terrific for the Cubs, posting a 1.47 ERA and converting 22 of 24 save opportunities before being sidelined in mid-July. It was actually a June 2 game that president of baseball operations Theo Epstein pinpointed as a setback for Morrow, who was supposed to be unavailable that day but appeared in the bottom of the 14th after the Cubs had taken a 7-1 lead against the Mets with a six-run outburst in the top half. The team's victory marked Morrow's third straight day of work and fourth appearance in five days then.
The Cubs have already made plans for Morrow to not be used three days in a row in 2019.
"They have a plan," Morrow said of how the Cubs will use him. "We talked about it briefly.
"Obviously, they're going to have to ease me back into it. I wouldn't expect to be pitching the ninth inning right away when I come back. And I think you just got to see how it goes. I expect it to go well and everything to pan out the way that we think it is going to. They'll have to ease you in when you come off an injury.
"You just want to be extra strong and extra cautious and make it a really good five months-plus in the postseason rather than get back maybe a week or two earlier. You don't want to miss the second half of the season like I did last year. I'd much rather be there for the last five months."
