CHICAGO — Throughout July and in his first start with his new team, Cubs pitcher Michael Soroka felt like he had life on his pitches.

The speed of his offerings told a different story.

“Sometimes that’s the funny thing about velocity is you can’t necessarily always feel what that number on the gun is,” Soroka said on Tuesday afternoon. “That’s kind of the weird part about the last month before I came here, was it still felt fairly similar. It was just velocity was somewhat gone.”

That’s what made Tuesday afternoon’s live batting practice session at Wrigley Field such a welcome sign for the right-hander who was acquired for prospects Christian Franklin and Ronny Cruz from the Nationals ahead of the MLB trade deadline.

Soroka had battled a shoulder injury that landed him on the 15-day IL just two innings into his Cubs career. Tuesday’s 34-pitch session that featured two “up-downs” – essentially two innings – saw his velocity tick up and his mechanics feel strong.

“Now we’re back at the point where we’re out there and it feels normal and it’s back in the mid 90s, and we’re happy with that,” Soroka said. “So it’s good to feel [that].”

On June 22 with the Nationals, Soroka’s four-seam fastball and sinker sat at 94 mph. After that came a slow decline. By the time he was with the Cubs, his four-seam sat at 90.8 mph and his sinker was at 89.5 mph. He’s not sure if the injury caused the bad mechanics or if subtle changes in his delivery led to an injury.

“Kind of a chicken or the egg type of thing, right?” Soroka said.

But that’s water under the bridge at this point. He feels he’s past the injury and is now just focused on making a return to the Cubs roster as they chase down a playoff spot over the final month. The Cubs have a five-game deficit behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central and hold a four-game lead on the San Diego Padres for the top spot in the NL Wild Card.

“It’s nice to be able to go to the live BP and go to rehab assignment, knowing that I have to show it,” Soroka said. “There’s not really a weak link in this entire team. I think everybody’s here for a reason.

“It’s a very deep team and something that I want to be a part of. And I gotta go compete. I gotta go show that I belong.”

Indeed, Soroka was brought in as the major starting pitching acquisition to fill a rotation that, at the trade deadline, was down Jameson Taillon, Javier Assad and Justin Steele.

But while he’s been gone, Assad has returned and looked solid, and Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton and Colin Rea have solidified places. Taillon returned, landed on the injured list again, but figures to be in the starting mix when he’s eligible to return in a week or so.

That means he might be destined for a bullpen role when he returns, something he’s not totally foreign to. Soroka has made 17 relief appearances in his career, 16 last season with the White Sox, posting a 3.00 ERA and limiting hitters to a .196 batting average.

But that’s jumping the gun just a touch.

Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Soroka will need to “touch the mound a couple more times,” meaning he might need to make some rehab appearances before he nears a return.

“Very encouraged by what we saw and how he felt,” Counsell said. “We’re gonna make sure we recover good from it, and then we’ll kind of go from there.

“But everything went really, really well.”