The Brewers are both the hottest team and hottest story in baseball right now, carried to the top of the league by an 11-game winning streak and no signs of looking back. So where does that leave the Cubs, who once led the NL Central by 6 ½ games? On the outside looking in, secure in a wild card spot but facing a seemingly unthinkable climb back into the division race. The offense has all but vanished and the starting rotation has been decimated by injuries. After losing Tuesday night to the first-place Blue Jays, they sit 7 ½ games behind the Brewers.
The saving grace so far? Rookie right-hander Cade Horton, who takes the mound Wednesday night in Toronto.
Horton, the seventh overall pick in the 2022 draft out of the University of Oklahoma, debuted on May 10. He was forced into the Cubs' rotation due to a few injuries, but he also did some forcing on his own, thanks to a 1.24 ERA and 0.86 WHIP in six Triple-A starts.
As could be reasonably expected for a rookie, there were plenty of ups and downs through Horton's first two months. Through June, he'd made nine starts at the big-league level, pitching to a 4.80 ERA and 1.44 WHIP with 33 strikeouts against 14 walks in 45 innings. He never looked out of his depth and sometimes was only one or two different pitches from getting out of trouble instead of into it. That's just how it goes early in the career for most starters (or at least not those named Paul Skenes).
As Horton learned how to be a big-league pitcher on the fly, things started to come together. He threw seven scoreless innings in a 1-0 Cubs win on July 3. He took a step back on July 9, when he coughed up four runs in 4 ⅔ innings. He hasn't allowed a run since, however.
Horton is now working on a 23 ⅓-inning scoreless streak. It's the longest ever by a Cubs rookie on a list includes plenty of big names, such as Greg Maddux, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, Rick Reuschel and Fergie Jenkins (he started with the Phillies but was still rookie-eligible with the Cubs).
Horton has now gone four consecutive starts without allowing a run. Since the beginning of July, he's made six starts and hasn't allowed a run in five of them, sporting a 1.05 ERA and 0.93 WHIP with 26 strikeouts in 34 ⅓ innings. Last time out, he struck out six without walking anyone in 5 ⅔ innings against the Reds, allowing only two hits.
Even with Horton's development into what looks like a frontline starter happened concurrently, starting pitching seemed like an obvious need for the Cubs at the trade deadline. They traded for Michael Soroka, but he went down with a shoulder injury and hit the injured list after just two innings.
While it's unclear how close to a deal Cubs club president Jed Hoyer got in any negotiations late last month, Horton, it appears, was a nonstarter.
"He came up in some trade discussions," Hoyer said, via The Athletic. "To trade a guy (like) him with his amount of control to get a guy with less control, it didn't make a lot of sense, along with a bunch of other pieces as well."
Despite not breaking camp with the big-league team back in the spring, things are trending toward Horton being in the Cubs' playoff rotation. Lefties Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga are the Cubs' top two in the rotation but past that, Horton sure looks like the third-best option.
That said, the workload might present an issue. Between Triple-A and the majors this season, Horton has worked 108 ⅓ innings. He only threw 34 ⅓ last year as a strained lat carved into his second minor-league season. In 2023, he threw 88 ⅓ innings between Class A and Double-A. His final year in college, 2022, he pitched 53 ⅔ innings.
Though Horton looks as strong as ever right now, there has to be concern in having him uncompromised by, say, the middle of October without dialing back his workload greatly. He was pulled after 67 pitches last start, for example, so the Cubs are acutely aware here. Surely they'd like to skip his turn in the rotation a few times. Then again, the Cubs are fighting to hold onto a playoff spot right now and Horton is pitching too well to bench him.
Maybe that changes soon.
Javier Assad returned Tuesday night, allowing four earned runs in four innings to the Blue Jays. Jameson Taillon is expected to return to the rotation next time through. Colin Rea and Ben Brown have been filling in gaps all year. If there's a chance when the Cubs feel good enough about skipping Horton a few times in the rotation, they'll find a way.
Assuming the Cubs are able to keep some gas in the tank for Horton, the Cubs' playoff rotation probably goes Boyd/Imanaga as the first two with Taillon and Horton filling in behind them. Assad's stuff would play better in the bullpen anyway and it's possible Brown and/or Rea also help in relief.
That is, of course, assuming they can make it. If they can hold on, Horton's ascent will have been a major reason why.
