Chicago Cubs Cut Jameson Taillon Loose in the Middle of a 4-2 Road Trip

The Chicago Cubs spent the week doing the two things they have done all season: beating the daylights out of bad pitching and then losing a game they had no business losing. They went 4-2 across six road games in Pittsburgh and St. Louis, outscored those two clubs 40-18, and still gave one away in extra innings on Wednesday night at Busch Stadium. Chicago is 61-47, six games back of Milwaukee in the National League Central, and holding the top NL wild card by four and a half. Somewhere in the middle of all that, they cut a starting pitcher they had activated off the injured list seven days earlier.

Six games in the rust belt, four of them good

The Pittsburgh series opened July 24 with a 3-2 win in 10 innings. Matthew Boyd went seven and allowed one earned run, Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled and homered, and Dansby Swanson knocked in the go-ahead run in the 10th off Yohan Ramirez. Caleb Thielbar picked up the win, Gavin Hollowell survived the bottom half for the save. Jared Jones had matched Boyd nearly pitch for pitch, six innings and one run.

July 25 was the kind of game that makes you check the box score twice. Chicago beat Paul Skenes 11-0. Skenes struck out 11 in 5 1/3 but was tagged for five earned, and the moment he left, the Cubs put up six more on the Pittsburgh bullpen. Crow-Armstrong went 4-for-5 with two doubles, a home run, three RBI, three runs and a stolen base. Michael Busch had three hits. Pedro Ramirez, Swanson and Miguel Amaya each had two. Shota Imanaga threw six shutout innings on four hits and Javier Assad finished with three more scoreless.

Then July 26. The Cubs scored seven runs and lost 8-7. Jameson Taillon lasted four innings and gave up seven earned. Ryan O'Hearn homered and drove in four for the Pirates, Esmerlyn Valdez went deep, Shawn Ross went deep, and the Cubs kept clawing back without ever getting even. Nine different Chicago hitters recorded a hit. Aaron Civale, acquired from the Athletics on July 18, threw two scoreless innings with three strikeouts in relief, which turned out to be foreshadowing.

St. Louis went better. On July 27 the Cubs won 7-3 behind a preposterous night from the top of the order: Alex Bregman 4-for-5 with two doubles, a homer, two RBI and three runs, Nico Hoerner 4-for-5 with a home run and four RBI. David Peterson gave up two over 5 2/3 and Matthew Liberatore did not survive the fourth. July 28 was worse for the Cardinals, 10-2, with Michael McGreevy allowing seven earned in 1 2/3 innings. Seiya Suzuki had three hits and two RBI, Bregman had three more, Ian Happ doubled twice, and Colin Rea gave Chicago six innings of one-run ball.

July 29 undid some of the goodwill. Boyd threw seven shutout innings on four hits, Jacob Webb and Thielbar each worked a clean inning behind him, and the game was still scoreless through nine because Dustin May and four St. Louis relievers had allowed the Cubs exactly one hit. Crow-Armstrong broke it with a two-run homer, his 24th, in the top of the 10th. Then Trent Thornton recorded one out in the bottom half and gave up three runs: a force-out that plated the first, and an Ivan Herrera two-run double down the line that ended it. Herrera finished 3-for-5 with two doubles. Cardinals 3, Cubs 2, and a night of dominant pitching went in the bin.

Pete Crow-Armstrong is having the year

Crow-Armstrong is hitting .284/.382/.538 with 24 home runs, 63 RBI, 71 runs and 26 stolen bases, a .920 OPS, and he plays center field like it owes him money. He homered three times in the six-game stretch and had a four-hit game against Skenes. He is the Cubs' best player and the argument for pushing chips in.

Around him it is more uneven than the run totals suggest. Suzuki is at .272 with 18 homers and 60 RBI. Bregman, signed as a free agent over the winter, is hitting .245/.338/.375 with 11 homers, which is fine on-base production and less power than anyone expected, though he was scalding this week. Happ has 18 homers with a .219 average. Swanson has 16 homers and 61 RBI with a .218 average. Busch is getting on base at a .358 clip. Michael Conforto has a .478 slugging in 161 at-bats. Pedro Ramirez, up from Iowa, is hitting .315 in 89 at-bats and keeps finding his way into the box score.

The rotation is the soft spot. Imanaga is the workhorse at 7-8 with a 3.72 ERA, 121 innings and 113 strikeouts. Boyd has been the best per-inning starter at 6-1, 3.41. Rea is 8-7 with a 4.67. Peterson has a 5.06 in 26 2/3 innings since arriving. Assad has a 3.86 and is now moving into the rotation. The bullpen has held up better than expected given who is missing: Webb at 2.72 with five saves, Ryan Rolison at 2.66, Thornton at 3.03 despite Wednesday, Thielbar at 3.94.

The Jameson Taillon decision

On July 27, four days after Taillon's four-inning, seven-run outing in Pittsburgh, the Cubs designated him for assignment. He finished with a 2-6 record and a 5.92 ERA in 76 innings, and among qualified pitchers he had the worst fielding independent pitching mark in baseball at 6.74 while sitting tied for the most home runs allowed at 25. This is a pitcher who had been activated off the injured list on July 20 and made two starts.

"We just had to make a hard decision as to whether we thought Jameson was going to pitch again," Craig Counsell said. Teammates spoke well of him. Swanson called him a top-tier teammate. That does not change the run prevention.

The roster churn since has been almost comic: Andrew Wantz was selected from Iowa on July 27, pitched two innings in the July 28 blowout, and was designated for assignment on July 29, with Jake Woodford selected in his place. Assad slides into Taillon's rotation spot.

Chicago Cubs injuries: the bullpen is a construction site

Closer Daniel Palencia (2.70 ERA in 16 2/3 innings) had a setback in his rehab and is now looking at mid-August. Phil Maton went on the 15-day list July 20 with right knee tendinitis. Hoby Milner, recovering from emergency appendix surgery, started a rehab assignment at Iowa on July 29 and was targeted for roughly August 1. Ethan Roberts and Ben Brown are also on the 15-day list. Hunter Harvey, Cade Horton and Riley Martin are on the 60-day. Edward Cabrera has been penciled in for the second week of August. Justin Steele, who has not pitched in two years, is looking at mid-September at the earliest.

On the position side, Matt Shaw remains out with a wrist problem and as of the most recent update was still symptomatic and not swinging a bat, which is why Pedro Ramirez and James Triantos keep getting at-bats.

Cubs deadline outlook heading into Monday

The deadline is Monday, August 3 at 6 p.m. ET, and Jed Hoyer has been unusually clear about what he wants: a starting pitcher with club control beyond 2026. That is not a coincidence. Imanaga, Rea and Taillon were all headed for free agency, and one of those three has already been cut loose. Reporting has connected Chicago to controllable Angels arms in Reid Detmers and Jose Soriano, with rental options like Robbie Ray, Freddy Peralta, Clay Holmes and Kevin Gausman also in circulation, plus Luke Weaver as bullpen help. Hoyer has historically avoided top-of-market aces on injury and payroll grounds, so a mid-tier arm with two or three years of control is the likelier landing spot.

Chicago closes the St. Louis series on July 30 with Assad opposing Andre Pallante, then comes home to Wrigley on July 31 for the Yankees with Imanaga on the mound. The Central is probably out of reach at six back of a 67-41 Brewers club, but the Cubs' four-and-a-half-game wild card cushion over Arizona and Philadelphia is real, and the roster is good enough that a competent starter and one bullpen arm could change how October feels. Hoyer has three days. Given what the rotation looked like on July 26, he should probably use them.