The National League Wild-Card Series between the San Diego Padres And The Chicago Cubs starts on Tuesday and the Cubs are already starting behind the eight-ball.
The Cubs have a steeper mountain to climb to defeat the Padres and continue to the division series, with ESPN’s Jesse Rogers Rookie-Werper Cad Horton misses that, according to the team, the Wildcard round will miss because of a broken rib.
Horton could join the Cubs again for game 5 of the NLDs, but they have to come first. Left -handed Jordan Wicks Horton’s will take a seat on the active schedule.
Cad Horton was on track to end.
Not having Horton for their large series against the Padres will be a blow, because he gave the Cubs a solid top three alongside Matthew Boyd-one first all-star in 2025 and Shota Imanaga.
Horton Has had an impressive Rookie season, placed an 11-4 record with a 2.67 ERA in 118.0 innings, and will probably end in the top five in the National League Rookie of the Year voices, with Drake Baldwin of the Atlanta Braves looks like the favorite to win. Baldwin Hit .275 with a .808 Ops, 19 Home Runs and 80 RBI in 122 games (95 at Catcher).
The chances are against the Chicago Cubs
The Cubs already had an exhausted rotation that came in the Wildcard round, because they did little to tackle it in the low season or the trade deadline. The big step of President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer in the deadline was to acquire Michael Soroka, who has since tackled injuries, from The Washington Nationals.
Compared to the rotation of the Padres, with a solid top four by Michael King, Dylan Stlaat, Yu Darvish and Nick Pivetta, the Cubs have an average to under average rotation, where Imanaga and Boyd have now busy to play in games 1 and 2.
With Imanaga and Boyd who start the first two games, someone else, such as Colin Rea, Javier Assad or Jameson Taillon, may have to take a step and win game 3 to go the Cubs to the NLDs when they split the first two games.
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