Man, oh man, this is getting ridiculous. Now the backups to the backups are even getting hurt for the Chicago Cubs. Cade Horton has already been ruled out for the rest of the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery, and then last week, Matthew Boyd needed surgery on his left meniscus. Fortunately, Boyd will miss only about six weeks of action, as the Cubs hope to get the veteran back before July. The depth has already been tested, and the situation isn’t getting any better because two more pitching reinforcements suffered injury setbacks.
First, Kyle Wright was ramping up in Arizona, as the former 21-game winner for the Atlanta Braves continued his rehab with the Cubs after signing a minor league deal in the offseason. According to The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma, Wright was about to head up to Triple-A Iowa after pitching four innings and hitting 96mph with his fastball. However, the right-handed pitcher didn’t recover well, and felt pain in his shoulder last weekend.
So, if you were excited about or were just wondering what happened to Wright, it’s more shoulder issues for the 30-year-old. He had surgery on his pitching shoulder in Oct. 2023, which forced Wright to miss the entire 2024 season. Wright threw 23 innings in the Kansas City Royals’ minor league system last year, but he suffered from shoulder fatigue and an oblique strain that further set him back.
Then, Vince Velasquez made his return to the Iowa Cubs last Friday after he was designated for assignment at the end of April. He re-signed with the organization last week and in his first game back since pitching in mop-up duty against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Velasquez went down with an undisclosed injury on Friday night.
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Just an unreal run of bad luck for the Cubs this year with pitching injuries. Luckily, Ben Brown got another opportunity to step back into a starter’s role, and his first start in 2026 was outstanding for the 26-year-old.
The discovery of his new sinker has truly changed the type of pitcher that Brown is on the mound. He is generating a ton more ground balls while decreasing the hard contact against him, a major issue for Brown in 2025.
Brown will continue to increase his pitch count in the coming weeks, and hopefully, he continues to succeed while filling in for Boyd. It was already tough enough for the Cubs without Horton, but losing two of your starting pitchers can really derail a pitching staff, like we saw last year when Justin Steele and Shōta Imanaga were both on the injured list from early May through the end of June, before Imanaga was able to come back.
The Cubs are using Javier Assad in the bullpen after his handful of spot starts in April. So far, Brown and Assad have been extremely valuable as the organization’s main depth options in 2026, alongside Colin Rea.
Pressure is on as the reinforcements for the Cubs are seemingly nonexistent if there are any more injury concerns in the starting rotation.
