Chicago Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The 2025 season has been sort of a redemption story for Chicago Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd. After battling through two major elbow surgeries and bouncing between several teams, the veteran left-hander is putting together the best season of his career.
With a 10-3 record and a 2.34 earned run average, he’s emerged as the ace on the Cubs staff and will be relied upon heavily to help them get back to the postseason for the first time since 2020. Understandably, he’d like to keep that going all the way through October.
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But after eight shutout innings Saturday against the New York Yankees, he’s already thrown 111.2 innings this year at the All-Star break, surpassing the 110.2 innings he logged during the ’23 and ’24 seasons combined as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
That’s why despite being selected to his first All-Star Game, the 34-year-old made the difficult decision to not pitch in Tuesday’s game (though he did attend with his family).
“Before I had the selection, before I got that honor, we were talking about just with everything in mind, with the innings last year and going into this break and how there’s an opportunity to kinda prolong the break depending on when I come back and pitch,” Boyd told reporters Saturday. “And using it to our advantage that there’s only so many natural breaks you have in the season. So there’s a chance to kinda give you a breather, give you a blow if you will.
“‘Cause everything’s going great. But just knowing that [I’m] on pace to throw more innings than I have since 2019 — or already have thrown. So it was just kinda built in that way.”
He threw a career-high 185.1 innings while with the Tigers in 2019, but struggled during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season with a 3-7 record and a league-worst 6.71 ERA. After a 3-8 record, 3.89 ERA and more injuries in 2021, the Tigers let him enter free agency. Since then, he’s spent time with the San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, the Tigers again, the Cleveland Guardians and now the Cubs.
But that 2019 season is the last time he’s topped 100 innings, so the Cubs are being extra cautious. It’s why manager Craig Counsell pulled him after eight innings of shutout ball against the Yankees despite throwing just 85 pitches.
“I hope there’s another chance to pitch in the All-Star Game,” Boyd said. “But the goal this year is to be fresh all the way through October. And something that we just gotta keep in mind as we go forward.”
That kind of long-term vision didn’t come easily. In a devotional Boyd wrote for the Spring 2024 edition of Sports Spectrum Magazine, he opened up about the emotional and spiritual toll of his journey.
“I didn’t want to have a second surgery,” he wrote. “I made it through so much of my career without needing one, but now I’ve had two in basically two years. So I’m back in rehab and will likely be sidelined until this summer. I’m also a free agent, so I don’t know what’s going to happen as I go through this rehab process. This is not how I drew it up.”
And yet, despite the pain, the waiting and the doubts, Boyd found peace and perseverance in his faith in God.
“I trust God and know He has good things planned for me,” he wrote. “I know He’s got me and I’m His handiwork. … I believe my best baseball is ahead of me. I still believe I’m going to win a World Series and be one of the best starting pitchers in this game.”
That belief is rooted in Scripture, particularly verses like Proverbs 3:5-6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…” — and James 1, which reminds us to “consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds.”
Boyd is no stranger to the postseason. Last year, he went from being a free agent to helping the Guardians defeat his previous team, the Tigers, in the winner-goes-on Game 5 of the American League Division Series. Boyd threw two scoreless innings, including five strikeouts, in that game, then followed it up with five innings of one-run ball while allowing just two hits in a 7-5 win over the Yankees in Game 3 of the AL Championship Series.
“I don’t write the script, but the One who does writes it a lot better than me, as I’ve said many times,” he said in a press conference before Game 5 of the ALDS. “It’s pretty cool.”
Boyd, who on social media says he plays for an “Audience of One,” wrote another devotional for Sports Spectrum in the Spring 2023 magazine that further reveals the spiritual depth behind his decisions.
“The past year has been interesting,” he wrote. “I had surgery on my throwing arm toward the end of 2021, left Detroit after more than six seasons to sign with San Francisco as a free agent, spent much of 2022 rehabbing, was traded to Seattle before I could even make an appearance with the Giants, made 10 appearances as a Mariner (plus one in the playoffs), then became a free agent again, and now I’m back in Detroit. It’s been a whirlwind.
“One thing that was paramount through all my uncertainty was, ‘What’s my identity?’ And more specifically, ‘What does God tell me my identity is?'”
In the quiet of rehab and reflection, Boyd came to see that competition — not just on the mound, but in his role as a husband, father and believer — could still define him.
“I could compete in my rehab. I could compete… in being a parent… to make my marriage thrive,” he wrote. “We all need to know what God calls us. … We need to discover the promises and truth God has spoken over our lives.”
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