Floundering Chicago Cubs rotation to make changes as Cabrera, Boyd return

The Chicago Cubs are not at all where they imagined themselves being at this point in the season—just three games above .500 and in fourth place in the NL Central Division.

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There are several reasons for this not-so-great 2026 run so far, but a full-on collapse of the starting rotation has to rank among the biggest fails of the young season. Coming into the year, the thought was that Chicago would have a pretty good rotation, deep in options and with some ace upside in the 24-year-old Cade Horton, who was one of baseball’s best pitchers over the second half of his 2025 rookie season. They also had Justin Steele as an ace in the hole, expected back from 2025 elbow surgery at some point in May or June.

Things haven’t turned out as anticipated.

Not at all as anticipated

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Horton suffered an elbow injury in just his second start of the season and is lost for this year and beyond after having to undergo the second Tommy John surgery of his young career.

Last year’s ace Matthew Boyd has been on the IL more time than he’s been on the active roster and is currently finalizing a rehab assignment in Triple-A Iowa following surgery to repair meniscus damage.

Steele, meanwhile, has suffered a setback in his recovery and the team’s only hope right now is that he makes it back before the end of this season.

Even new acquisition Edward Cabrera had been forced to miss two weeks with a blister issue.

And while those physical problems have hurt the Cubs, healthy starters Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, and Colin Rea have not consistently performed up to snuff. Actually, Taillon and Imanaga, specifically, rate among the worst starters in all of baseball right now.

Needless to say, the fall of the starting rotation has been a big problem, although the team managed to succeed for about five weeks or so early in the season despite the staff’s issues. Eventually, though, the stress and strain of a failing rotation helped pull the rest of the team down with it.

Emergency fill-in Ben Brown has been the best pitcher on the staff by far, posting a 1.73 ERA through five starts.

But excluding Brown, Cubs’ starters have an ugly -2.4 combined WAR. The rotation as a whole is currently ranked 18th in MLB ERA (4.18), but that is deceptively positive given the staff’s very early success rated against recent failures.

Good news?

The tentative good news is that Cabrera is now officially back in the rotation following his IL stint and no matter what he does upon return, it’ll be better than what Jordan Wicks gave them.

Boyd is also due back after one more rehab start in Iowa.

Then, some decisions will have to be made.

Somebody will have to be dropped from the rotation and put in the bullpen. Rea is the most likely candidate given his status as a swingman who can work as a starter or reliever. But Rea has also been their most effective starter recently, other than Brown.

Whatever the case, it looks like the rest of the way might be a struggle for Cubs starting pitching. And with the trade deadline still two months away, no outside help will be coming anytime soon.

The post Floundering Chicago Cubs rotation to make changes as Cabrera, Boyd return appeared first on ChiCitySports.

Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-rotation-changes-cabrera-boyd-brown-rea/