TORONTO -- It was far from an offensive onslaught, but the Cubs’ bats did enough behind another impressive start from Cade Horton to earn a 4-1 win over the Blue Jays Wednesday night at Rogers Centre.
Horton carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before giving up a one-out single to Andrés Giménez. A walk to Bo Bichette two hitters later would end his night after 5 2/3 innings. He struck out eight while allowing just one earned run, snapping his scoreless innings streak at 28 1/3 frames.
Offensively, Michael Busch took a 3-1 pitch from Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman over the wall in right field to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead in the top of the third, while Matt Shaw followed with a solo shot of his own off Gausman in the fifth.
The Cubs tacked on two more in the eighth inning to improve to 68-51.
But the real story on the night was Horton, who stole the spotlight once again. It’s becoming a trend manager Craig Counsell said is hard to describe.
“This is the hardest team to strike out in baseball, and what he did to a very good lineup is just a continuation of what we’ve seen this past month,” Counsell said postgame. “He was awesome. We’ve had some superlatives with him each start, and this was maybe the best one.”
Horton’s eight strikeouts were a career best, and Counsell credited his ability to be in the strike zone consistently.
“That’s the beauty of being in the zone a lot, you get hitters in swing-mode, too,” Counsell said. “When the stuff is so good in the zone, they’re not going to lay off. He’s pitching at a really high level right now.”
The same could be said for the entire Cubs rotation.
Over the team’s past 24 games coming into Wednesday night, the starters had pitched to an MLB-best 2.99 ERA.
Horton said he was happy with his pregame routine, which carried over through almost six innings.
“I felt like I had a good feel for all my pitches tonight,” Horton said. “I was calm, slowed the heart rate down and [was] just in control. Focusing on executing pitches. It’s a really good team over there. I wanted to attack and be fearless in the strike zone.”
As happy as he was with the outing, he’s far from satisfied. As a rookie, he knows scouting reports on him will only grow and he acknowledges he needs to continue to make adjustments in order to pitch at a high level.
“My process,” Horton said of what he’s focusing on going forward. “Refining my pitches, refining my delivery and overall getting more comfortable each time I go out. Having a better idea of moving my fastball around in-zone and then moving my offspeed also around in-zone and not being so in the heart of the plate. That’s contributed a lot to the success.”