Cubs All-Star Matthew Boyd blanks Yankees for eight innings in final start before break
NEW YORK – Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd wrapped up his pre-All-Star break campaign with eight scoreless innings against the Yankees.
In the Cubs’ 5-2 win Saturday, he held the best offense in the American League to four hits. After the Cubs wrap up the series, the first-time All-Star will head to Atlanta, where he won’t be active for the game itself, but he plans to participate in the other festivities.
"I'm a product of the people around me," Boyd said after the game. "It's been a lot of fun to be part of this ball club, and I think we're all getting better collectively."
The decision for Boyd to decline pitching in the All-Star Game boiled down to timing and workload.
“It's just a starter’s schedule,” manager Craig Counsell said. “The All-Star game is difficult for starters; it's got to fall on the right day. When it doesn't, it starts to affect what happens after the All-Star Game, and that was problematic for Matt.”
Teams, especially those with playoff aspirations, will also often use the All-Star break to manage select starters’ workloads. Lining up their start days at the back of the rotation coming out of the break optimizes the time off.
Boyd has already thrown 111 2/3 innings this season. With a substantial injury history, including 2023 Tommy John surgery, this is the first time Boyd has surpassed 90 innings (including minor-league rehab games) in a season since 2019.
Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski (2.81 ERA) was named the corresponding replacement player on the NL All-Star team. He was a controversial pick, just five games (25 ⅔ innings) into his major-league career, setting a record for the fewest games played by a player chosen for the midsummer classic.
Boyd’s dominance Saturday brought his ERA to an impressive 2.34, the third-best mark among qualified NL pitchers as of Saturday afternoon, behind only the Pirates’ Paul Skenes (2.08) and the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler (2.17).
The Cubs offense gave Boyd a one-run lead to work with from the get-go. Nico Hoerner led off with a triple and then scored on Kyle Tucker’s groundout. The Cubs then rallied for three runs in the third inning, and Carson Kelly tacked on a solo home run in the eighth.
The Yankees scored their only runs on Aaron Judge’s homer in the ninth inning off reliever Brad Keller. Judge became the fastest player to reach 350 career home runs in MLB history, achieving the feat in 1,088 games played.