CHICAGO -- The Guardians gave Matthew Boyd the opportunity to mount a career comeback a year ago -- a chance he seized with a strong performance down the stretch that culminated in a playoff run with Cleveland. It was a showing that caught the eye of the Cubs and led the club to reel in the lefty with a two-year deal over the offseason.
“The best way to sum up Matt Boyd,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said, “is when he signed his contract to the Cubs, he called me and apologized.”
On Tuesday night, Boyd quieted his former club for seven innings, guiding the Cubs to a 5-2 victory at Wrigley Field. It marked his 12th quality start of the season and continued a strong run for the veteran lefty, who has been the resident metronome within a Chicago rotation that has dealt with injuries and other issues.
The Cubs lost Justin Steele for the season due to a left elbow injury and subsequent surgery. A hamstring injury put Shota Imanaga on the shelf for seven weeks before he returned last week. Colin Rea was asked to move out of the bullpen to take a rotation spot. Rookie Cade Horton has been learning and developing in the big leagues. Ben Brown’s extreme highs and lows led to a trip back to the Minors.
Through all that noise -- and with the Cubs now on the hunt for rotation help before the July 31 Trade Deadline -- Boyd has been the steady hand.
“Losing Steele so early and then obviously losing Shota for almost two months,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said, “we really needed Matt to step up, especially with some of the young guys sort of getting their feet wet. And he’s done an amazing job.”
In Tuesday’s win, Boyd limited Cleveland to a pair of runs in the fourth inning, when Nolan Jones connected for an RBI single and Angel Martínez added a sacrifice fly. Jones was swiftly erased from first base via Boyd’s slick pickoff move, which has nabbed a Major League-leading seven runners this season.
Cubs designated hitter Seiya Suzuki highlighted Boyd’s offensive support with his 23rd home run of the season in the sixth inning.
Boyd ended with five strikeouts in his outing, which gave him a 1.66 ERA in his last seven turns and lowered his overall ERA to 2.65 on the season. That ranks 12th among qualified MLB pitchers at the moment. Boyd is also up to 98 2/3 innings -- already nearly double his output in ‘24 (51 1/3 frames) between the regular season and playoffs.
“It was excellent again. It was efficient. It’s just more of what we’ve seen from Matt, really, the whole season,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “His steadiness and his just delivering innings every time out -- quality innings every time out -- it’s stabilizing. And it helps the bullpen. It helps you win.”
The Guardians experienced that last season, when Boyd spun a 2.72 ERA in eight starts down the stretch after returning from Tommy John surgery. That comeback began in the big leagues on Aug. 13, when Boyd handcuffed the Cubs into the sixth inning in an impressive return outing in Cleveland.
In the postseason, Boyd turned in a 0.77 ERA in his three appearances, which included two in the American League Division Series against the Tigers and one more in the AL Championship Series against the Yankees. The Guardians needed rotation reinforcement when Boyd arrived and he helped bring them to the cusp of a pennant.
“He just wants to pitch,” Vogt said. “He just wants to pitch and help the other people around him get better. He jumped in mid-season to a team that was already rolling, doing pretty well and added value right away. That's not easy to do, but it is when you're a good person.”
Boyd cracked a smile when asked about apologizing to Vogt for signing with the Cubs over the winter.
“I called Vogter, yeah,” Boyd said. “It was more just saying how grateful [I am for my time there]. You don’t know if there was going to be an opportunity, right? And it just became clear that I was supposed to be in Cleveland and I was fortunate when that time came. And I’m just grateful for Vogter and that staff for believing in me.”
That belief set Boyd up to find his multi-year deal in Chicago.
“He pitched in the playoffs and we saw him first-hand,” Hoyer said. “But you never know exactly [how it will go]. It was a little bit of an unusual background. He’s certainly probably exceeded expectations for us, which is a great thing to be able to say at this time of year.”