Tommy La Stella Recalled From Triple-A, Is Back In Cubs' Lineup

(CBS) Cubs infielder Tommy La Stella has been recalled from Triple-A Iowa and is in the team's lineup Wednesday night against the Pirates.

La Stella will bat seventh and play second base. It will be his first big league action since July 28. A day after that, La Stella was optioned to the minor leagues, starting a strange saga in which he refused to report for his assignment for nearly three weeks.

Other than indicating to ESPN.com once that he was re-evaluating his career and wouldn't play for anyone but the Cubs, La Stella has stayed silent about his self-appointed vacation, declining interview requests while at Triple-A. That will no longer be the case, as La Stella does owe his teammates an explanation, general manager Jed Hoyer said in an interview with Dan Bernstein and Laurence Holmes on 670 The Score.

"That's a huge part of his re-entrance, is going to be his teammates," Hoyer said, referring to a clearing of the air. "Ultimately, we've had those conversations, but I do think it's critical that he talks with teammates. It's probably going to be in multiple forums. It's probably going to be in a somewhat (group) setting, and I think there's going to be a lot of one-on-one conversations that go on past that. And they should.

"As much as we allowed him that break and to go to Iowa and come back, he still has to answer to his teammates and he still has to be a big part of that group. He's going to have to talk to those guys and convince him that he's OK."

Through the drama, Cubs players publicly supported La Stella, while management made clear he'd have to work his way back through the minor leagues before coming back to Chicago. La Stella played a couple games at Double-A Tennessee before moving on to Triple-A Iowa on Aug. 22.

"We wanted to bring him back before September 1 (roster expansion)," Hoyer said. "We didn't want to necessarily bring him back with the entire group. We thought the right thing to do was to bring him back today, and that's what we did.

"Given those conversations, we felt like it was the right thing to do. I think you make different decisions in different situations. I think there are some people and some leaders that would just take a 'my way or the highway' approach, and maybe that's OK. But in this situation, we felt like given those conversations and trying to be empathetic to him, it was important to us that he went down to the minor leagues and did that and played. Obviously, we made the decision we made. I don't necessarily think we'd make that same decision in the same situation over and over, but in this situation, given what we knew based on those conversations, this is what we did."

La Stella, 27, has been a key left-handed bat off the Cubs bench, hitting .295 with an .846 OPS. To make room for him, the Cubs optioned right-handed reliever Spencer Patton to Triple-A.

Listen to Hoyer's full interview with Bernstein and Holmes below.