The Cubs may still have 10 games left to play but Julian Merryweather’s season is over.

The veteran reliver will undergo a pateller tendon debridement Friday.

Merryweather has been on the IL with right knee tendinitis since Aug. 26 and hasn’t been able to get over the hump during his rehab appearances. The Cubs anticipate that Merryweather will be ready for the start of Spring Training.

“Essentially nothing new happened in terms of an injury,” Craig Counsell said. “After a couple of rehab appearances, and this is where Julian’s been, the knee has been an issue for most of the season here. It just didn’t get over the hump here to merit him pitching for the rest of the season.

“So surgery’s kind of always been an option here since he went on the IL and determined at this point to go forward with it.”

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His season will end with only 15 MLB outings in which he posted a 1-1 record with a 6.60 ERA and 1.80 WHIP. He did not allow a homer but did surrender 18 hits and 9 walks in his 15 innings.

It was a year marred by injury for the right-hander. He landed on the IL in early April with a stress fracture in a rib in his back and missed more than 3 months. He returned in late-July but lasted barely a month before he was back on the shelf.

Merryweather turns 33 in October and is under team control for the next 2 seasons. He was one of the Cubs’ most valuable bullpen arms in 2023 when he tallied 2 saves and 17 holds in 69 appearances while sporting a 3.38 ERA and striking out a whopping 98 batters in 72 innings.

“He was awesome in 2023,” Counsell said. “He had a great season. Lots of big innings in high leverage spots. We’ve not been able to get there – the injuries have just taken away the innings and and then I think the knee has a little bit taken away the performance since he’s come back.

“Our hope is that we can get this fixed and get him back to a version that we saw in 2023.”

Merryweather has been part of a long list of Cubs bullpen arms that have been hampered by injuries this season.

Adbert Alzolay – the closer to start the year – went on the IL in mid-May with a forearm strain and now will undergo Tommy John surgery. Yency Almonte (shoulder) and Luke Little (shoulder) were also part of the Opening Day bullpen but have been sidelined for the last several months.

Ben Brown was a big part of the Cubs pitching staff in the first couple months but a neck injury put him on the shelf in June and he won’t return this season.

Hayden Wesneski (forearm) has been out since late July but is the only member of the aforementioned group to make it back this season, as he is expected to rejoin the big-league team this weekend.

“You have to have those plans in place – that’s part of this too,” Counsell said. “When the leverage pieces get taken away quickly, those are harder to address. There’s no question about it.

“And it requires certainly more work, but it’s also a lesson in the importance of having solutions and plans to make sure that you do your best to cover for it or to keep the situation as usable and successful as possible.”