CHICAGO — Michael Soroka’s Chicago Cubs debut lasted only two innings.

And now the next time he will pitch in a Cubs uniform is concerningly unclear.

Soroka departed after the second inning Monday because of right shoulder discomfort in the Cubs’ ugly 3-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field. The shoulder issue will land him on the 15-day injured list, manager Craig Counsell said postgame, and will require further testing.

“You feel bad for Michael, first, and just hope that there’s just some discomfort there and a couple weeks can take care of it,” Counsell said. “We’re going to have to wait to get more information before we know what we’re dealing with.

“I don’t think we should speculate. The doctors will take a look and then we’ll go from there. Any shoulder, injured list, there’s concern.”

Soroka, who turned 28 on Monday, started the night strong by striking out three of the four batters he faced in the first inning. As the lone starting pitcher the Cubs acquired before Thursday’s trade deadline, losing Soroka for even two weeks is a blow, even with right-handers Jameson Taillon and Javier Assad on rehab assignments with Triple-A Iowa and nearing returns.

“Obviously you’re always concerned when you have to come out of the game,” Soroka said. “It’s never fun and it’s embarrassing. You come to this (organization) and you hope to hit the ground running, and two innings later we’re having to pull the plug.

“So obviously it’s concerning, but there is hope that it’s something that can be taken care of fairly quickly, and hopefully we’ll be back out there in some respect at some point soon.”

Notably, Soroka’s velocity was again down on all of his pitches, a trend that was already concerning when the Cubs acquired him Wednesday from the Washington Nationals.

After posting a season-high 94.9 mph average on his four-seam fastball in his start on June 22, his velocity steadily declined over the ensuing four weeks, dropping as low as a 90.9 average on July 23. Although his fastball velocity ticked up marginally in his last start before the trade, the pitch sat at a season-low 90.8 mph Monday.

As part of the effort to figure out his velocity loss, Soroka said he had an MRI before his July 29 start, his final one with the Nationals, “for my peace of mind” and “there was nothing that presented to be an issue at the time there.” He said he underwent a physical exam, too, in which he didn’t experience any pain or discomfort.

“There was no reason to believe anything was wrong. We just decided to go down that avenue just to make sure,” Soroka said. “Unfortunately, that changed tonight.”

Soroka felt his shoulder grab a little when he tried to put “a little extra” on a 1-1 fastball to Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson in the second inning — a 91.7 mph four-seamer that he yanked down and away for a ball. Three pitches later, Stephenson slugged a solo home run off a slurve to give the Reds an early lead.

Soroka was able to get through the rest of the inning but informed pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and head athletic trainer Nick Frangella in the dugout of the discomfort he had experienced, deciding to play it safe.

“Obviously everybody knew that the velocity hadn’t been there the last month,” Soroka said. “But I went out there in the bullpen, everything felt good early on. Over the last month, things were still playing. I still had life on everything. The breaking ball was still playing, like it was in the first. It just didn’t let me continue that way. It showed signs that I need to say something, and that’s what I did.

“There’s a lot of baseball left for this club, and I’d like to be a good part of that down the stretch, so we’re going to do everything possible to be there.”

Right-hander Ben Brown, who was available out of the bullpen during this turn through the rotation, replaced Soroka to start the third. Brown stepped up, holding the Reds to one run and two hits in four innings with no walks and five strikeouts.

He got unlucky on the lone run he allowed when left fielder Ian Happ couldn’t cleanly field Elly De La Cruz’s double against the foul-line wall to score Matt McLain from first and tie the game in the sixth. McLain’s soft single and De La Cruz’s half-swinging double had .210 and .070 expected averages, respectively.

The Reds took the lead in the seventh with a timely two-out hit off Caleb Thielbar, who entered with runners on the corners in relief of Ryan Brasier. TJ Friedl sent a 2-2 sweeper into center field for the go-ahead run.

The Cubs briefly looked to have tied the game in the bottom of the seventh when Dansby Swanson beat a throw to first base on a two-out grounder to third, scoring Willi Castro. However, the Reds challenged the call and replay review showed Swanson’s initial step to the base was inches short — by the time he dragged his foot across, Reds first baseman Spencer Steer had caught the throw.

The overturned call ended the seventh, and the Cubs put only one runner on base, a Pete Crow-Armstrong hit by pitch, in the last two innings. The Cubs, now three games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central, finished with just three hits.

“Initially I felt like I was a little bit short. I didn’t think I was as short as the replay was,” Swanson said. “I know I touched it at some point. I didn’t know when in the process.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever done that in my baseball life, to be honest, so just pretty unfortunate timing on the night.”

The lack of offense, including an 0 for 14 performance from the top four hitters in the lineup, continues a stretch in which the Cubs haven’t put up enough runs consistently to eliminate the small margin for error in games.

They’re missing power from their best hitters, including Seiya Suzuki, who is hitting .179 in the last three weeks with only one home run, three doubles and five RBIs in that span. The group entered Monday’s series opener at the league average in weighted runs created plus (100) and 21st in runs scored over the last month.

“I like the lineup we throw out there every day, so I’m very optimistic that we’re going to score runs, absolutely,” Counsell said. “The other team’s trying to prevent it, and sometimes they do a pretty good job of it. They did a good job tonight, but we’ll score runs.”

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