Edward Cabrera walked off the mound at Wrigley Field on Tuesday night wearing the face of a man who had just been through something genuinely frightening. Hand cramping up mid outing, velocity already a concern, command deserting him in the fifth — and a Cubs rotation that simply cannot afford another setback watching on anxiously from the dugout.
The good news is it probably isn’t serious. The bad news is the Cubs’ injury problems just refuse to stop.
What Happened Out There
Cabrera was cruising through the early innings — nine up nine down before Colorado started finding gaps in the fourth. Three consecutive hits, the last a two run homer from TJ Rumfield, and suddenly the momentum shifted. He got through the rest of the frame but the fifth inning is where things got really worrying.
Command deserted him completely. And then came the cramp.
“I threw a changeup and then after that the catcher asked for another changeup and I was like — oh wait, no,” Cabrera said through interpreter Fredy Quevedo Jr. “I was scared. But it was just a cramp.”
Manager Craig Counsell and head athletic trainer Nick Frangella made the walk to the mound and that was that. Five runs charged to his line — two coming after he left — across 4⅓ innings that pushed his ERA to 5.21 on the season.
The Bigger Problem For Chicago
Here’s the thing — this isn’t just about Cabrera. This is about a Cubs rotation that has been absolutely decimated by injuries all season long and is running dangerously low on answers.
Justin Steele opened the season on the IL and suffered a flexor strain setback in April. Cade Horton — last year’s NL Rookie of the Year runner up — needed season ending elbow surgery after just two starts. Matthew Boyd had knee surgery and is now dealing with shoulder soreness on top of it. Jameson Taillon is on the IL with a hamstring strain. Top prospect Jaxon Wiggins has been on the minor league IL with elbow inflammation.
Five rotation arms. All compromised in different ways. All at the same time.
“Injuries are part of the game,” Jed Hoyer said Tuesday. “Some seasons you maybe skate through it. Some seasons you don’t. We haven’t. But we have to fight through it and find different ways.”
Is Cabrera Actually Okay
All indications point to yes — for now. Counsell confirmed the tests came back clean and negative and the cramp appears unrelated to the blister issue that kept Cabrera on the IL from May 21 until June 4. The Cubs will monitor him over the coming days before deciding whether he can make his next scheduled start.
“All things considered he’s good,” Counsell said. “It’s a cramp right now as far as we can tell. I think it probably scared him a little bit.”
A little bit is an understatement. A pitcher feeling something completely new and unexpected in his throwing hand mid outing — in a season already ravaged by rotation injuries — is the kind of moment that makes your heart sink.
What Comes Next
Hoyer has already flagged that external rotation help at the trade deadline is a very real possibility. The current group is doing what it can but what it can do is being stretched thinner by the week.
In the meantime the Cubs are 34-34 and clinging to a Wild Card spot with a starting rotation held together by faith, creativity and an awful lot of crossed fingers.
Cabrera’s cramp might be nothing. But in a season like this one for Chicago — nothing has a funny habit of becoming something very quickly. ⚾🔥
