The year is 2025. The month is April. The Chicago Cubs feel good about a rotation featuring Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon. Then Steele exits a game with elbow “discomfort” and doesn’t play for the rest of the season.

The year is 2026. The month is April. The Chicago Cubs feel good about a rotation featuring Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton and Edward Cabrera. Then Horton exits a game with forearm “discomfort” and Cubs fans hold their breath.

Horton made it to the second inning against the Guardians on Friday. After walking Kyle Manzardo on five pitches, the 24-year-old left the mound with what was officially described as “right forearm discomfort.”

McGregor described Horton going to the clubhouse with tears in his eyes. That detail paints a picture that has Cubs fans worrying.

Sometimes, players just know that something is serious before the scans have anything to say. That’s not to say perception is always correct, but it’s clear Horton himself was stressing the injury as he went to get checked out. All anyone can do know is hope it isn’t serious.

Cade Horton’s injury has Cubs fans flashing back to Justin Steele, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.

Yeah, watching a top-level starter deal with “discomfort” in April for the second year in a row isn’t what fans in Chicago expected or wanted. Hell, the PTSD doesn’t just extend back to Steele. Some fans are having flashbacks to Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, a pair of pitchers who were supposed to anchor the team in the early 2000s but were limited by recurring injury trouble.

Hopes couldn’t have been higher for Wood and Prior. That is until Wood could never quite shake shoulder injuries after undergoing Tommy John surgery. And then Prior’s workload and mechanics resulted in a career-ending series of elbow and shoulder problems.

Cubs fans are already praying Steele doesn’t suffer the same fate. He’s still recovering from a second Tommy John surgery and isn’t expected back until later in 2026. When he is back, Chicago will have to wrap him in bubble wrap to prevent setbacks or new problems.

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Horton had an outstanding rookie season which set him up for a significant role in Craig Counsell’s rotation. There are already worrying signs that he could be on the same path as Wood, Prior and Steele. He had Tommy John surgery in 2021 and missed the end of last season with a fractured rib. That rib injury wasn’t because he got hit by a baseball or anything, he literally coughed his way to a stress fracture. Now there’s the forearm issue.

All of this could be catastrophizing. Horton could be diagnosed with something exceedingly minor and come back to pitch in no time. Even so, Cubs fans have every reason to worry.

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