Matthew Boyd is an All-Star: Cubs' Rotation Stalwart Earns First Career Nod

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

Matthew Boyd hasn't made more than 15 starts or reached 100 innings pitched since before 'social' and 'distancing' ceased to be antonyms. This season, however, he's not only held up (under a carefully managed workload, but no insignificant one), but pitched so well that there was little doubt he would be named to the National League All-Star team when it was announced Sunday evening. Now, it's official: Boyd, at 34 years old, has earned that recognition for the first time in his 11-year career.

Ruthlessly efficient and consistent, Boyd is running a career-low 5.6% walk rate, and has 12 quality starts in his 17 turns in the rotation. Among National League starters, only Spencer Schwellenbach, Zach Wheeler and Logan Webb have more. Boyd has never even reached 100 pitches in a game and has only bequeathed three runners to his bullpen all year, even as he's been asked to soak up an extra out or three in games at various points during the team's injury-ravaged season.

He's made myriad small adjustments—a lower arm slot, which has begotten more run on his fastball; a firmer, tighter slider, some shifts in how he mixes and sequences his five-pitch arsenal—but there's no grand reinvention here. Boyd has merely benefited from the coincidence of being healthy and enlightened by age and experience, and he's finally getting the chance to show how good he has often been at points in his past.

Had injuries not derailed his career for half a decade, he might have gotten this good long ago. Boyd was almost at this level of performance in 2018 and 2019, but fell victim to bad bouts of go-feritis, fueled by a breaking ball he didn't yet have good command of and a lack of feel for the changeup that has become his best secondary pitch. He's matured and improved, even though it was often hard to see it happening between trips to the injured list. The Cubs were excited to land him on a two-year deal this winter, even though the price tag ($29 million) made several other front offices raise their eyebrows and clutch their purse strings tighter. 

Now, Boyd is the linchpin of the Cubs rotation. Shota Imanaga is still better, when both are firing on all cylinders, but Imanaga is just making his full return from a hamstring strain that sidelined him for nearly two months. Justin Steele is out for the season; Jameson Taillon won't be back until at least mid-August. Ben Brown is in Iowa, and Colin Rea and Cade Horton look serviceable—but only just. Boyd is holding together a rotation that needs reinforcements, and while the team will surely look to make those additions over the next few weeks, Boyd's performance is how they can so confidently assert themselves in those pursuits. He's been a godsend, and in all likelihood, the Cubs have been the right place for him, too.

He won't fly to Atlanta alone, of course. Already named starting outfielders on the NL squad, Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong will join him at the midsummer festival. The Cubs are no juggernaut, but the collection of players who will represent them in the league's jewel event—two offseason pickups, of very different scales and sensibilities, and their homegrown could-be superstar—speaks to the potential of this team.

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