Cubs manager Craig Counsell announced today before the team’s game with the Cincinnati Reds tonight that one of their front-end starters, Matthew Boyd, will require surgery for a surprise meniscus injury. There is no timetable for his return.
Even wilder is Rogers’ reporting on how it happened:
For the Cubs, this is a real rotation cut because Boyd had just started to look like a stabilizer again. His surface line was noisy at 2-1 with a 6.00 ERA and 1.29 WHIP, but the underlying shape was cleaner: 31 strikeouts against six walks over 24 innings, a strikeout rate around 31.0%, a walk rate around 6.0%, and a 2.39 FIP sitting well below the ERA. His most recent start backed that up: six innings against Arizona, two runs, four hits, five strikeouts, 94 pitches, and 65 strikes in an 8-4 Cubs win. Even the rehab step after his biceps strain was sharp, with Boyd striking out six, walking one, and throwing 46 of 64 pitches for strikes across 3 2/3 innings at Triple-A Iowa.
The larger issue is that Chicago’s rotation was already thin. Boyd was the Opening Day starter, but the Cubs had already lost him once to a left biceps strain after two starts, and Cade Horton is now done for 2026 after Tommy John surgery. That removes a 24-year-old righty who opened this year 1-0 with a 2.45 ERA after finishing second in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2025, when he went 11-4 with a 2.67 ERA. Justin Steele’s elbow setback adds another layer after he posted a 3.06 ERA in 2023 and a 3.07 ERA across 24 starts the next season. So Boyd’s meniscus surgery is more weird, bad luck. It strips away a left-handed starter with real swing-and-miss indicators just as the Cubs are already missing Horton, waiting on Steele, and leaning harder on Shota Imanaga, Edward Cabrera, Jameson Taillon, Javier Assad, Colin Rea, and whatever bridge innings they can manufacture.
