Steady rotation key to Cubs coming out of rut for the stretch run

SAN FRANCISCO – The Cubs rotation’s steady performance over the past couple months had been overshadowed recently by the offense’s struggles. But now that the team is winning again, the starting pitching is back in the spotlight.

“You go through a six-week or two-month – I don’t know where you want to draw the line – stretch of the starting pitching that we’ve had, you're going to win some games regardless of how you're doing offensively when you're getting that consistency and production,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said Sunday. “And combine that with pretty solid defense lately, and then some slug this series really made a big difference. So I feel like we're in a strong place.”

Let’s draw the line at All-Star break. Since then, the Cubs rotation’s 2.89 ERA has been the best in the majors, by a comfortable margin. Entering Monday, two other NL Central teams took up the next two spots in that span, the Reds (3.39) and the Brewers (3.41).

Starting pitching was instrumental as the Cubs swept the Angels this weekend, cutting the Brewers’ lead in the National League Central to five games. Right-handers Javier Assad, Cade Horton and Jameson Taillon combined to allow just two runs in 17 innings. And that was with Horton on a workload limit and Taillon leaving his start with tightness in his left groin.

“Over the next couple days, we'll gather more [information],” Taillon said after the game Sunday. “But I'm super encouraged, I think we caught it early. I pitched that whole fifth inning feeling a little something. So, if it was really bad, I wouldn't have been able to do that.”

Taillon also dealt with a left groin injury in 2023 that sidelined him for two weeks, but he said the “little cramp” he felt Sunday while warming up for the fifth inning was “way less” than that groin strain two years ago.

Sunday marked Taillon’s second start back from a seven-week stay on the IL for a strained right calf. He said he didn’t know if the two lower-body injuries were connected.

“Could be,” he said. “Could also just be, I threw one pitch and it tweaked.”

Getting Taillon and Assad back from the IL was a boon for the Cubs’ rotation depth, especially after trade deadline acquisition Michael Soroka strained his shoulder in his first appearance for the team. Soroka is scheduled to throw off a mound for the first time since the injury this week, Counsell said over the weekend.

Assad, after missing most of the season for a pair of left oblique strains, threw a season-high six innings Friday and was back to his old self in his third major-league start of the year.

“That last pitch where he struck out [Taylor] Ward, that's his pitch,” Counsell said after the game Friday. “And I'm not sure in the first two starts if we saw it, necessarily. But he had it going tonight in a big way.”

The pitch was a sinker that started off the plate and darted into the strike zone to strike out Ward looking – an apt way to end Assad’s best start of the year. The Cubs optioned Assad to Triple-A afterwards to keep him stretched out, but he's expected to make more major-leauge starts this year.

The next day, Horton took up the mantle and tossed six scoreless innings in just 74 pitches.

“That's just kind of the way I pitch,” Horton said. “It's, get ahead and stay ahead. When you start falling behind in counts, that's you walk guys, and then bloop single, and then all of a sudden it's a double and you let up two runs, or whatever [it may be]. So just continuing to stay on the attack and letting the result be what it is.”

The 21 straight strikes Horton threw to begin his outing were a reflection of that mentality in the extreme.

Horton bounced back from a blister on his right middle finger, which had cut his previous outing short, to remain on schedule.

Something similar would be the best-base scenario for Taillon, but his recovery the next couple days will give the Cubs a sense of a realistic timeline.

“We could be in an unbelievable situation, I'd be concerned about our pitching,” Counsell quipped Friday about the innings puzzle for the rest of the season. “Maybe that's my issue that I need to talk about. But I think we've handled this week [with a doubleheader], and the guys have handled this week really, really well.”