How quickly can almost five months of good will get flushed down the drain? If you’re Jed Hoyer and the Chicago Cubs, the answer is “under three hours”. Getting jumped at home on Opening Day in a 10-4 loss to the Washington Nationals — a team that spent the winter actively trying to trade away its best big-league players, and that might well lose 110 games this season — will have that effect.

But it wasn’t just that the Cubs started this season 1-0. It was how it happened: Lefty Matthew Boyd, one of the feel-good stories of Chicago’s 2025 campaign, looked like a shell of himself, coughing up six runs on six hits and a walk in just 3.2 innings of work. And just like that, all the questions Cubs fans had about this starting rotation, and whether it would be good enough to propel a deep playoff run, got thrown into even sharper relief.

Matthew Boyd’s Opening Day dud throws Cubs rotation into question

Last season, while Shota Imanaga was melting down and Justin Steele was undergoing Tommy John surgery, Boyd was the rock of the Chicago pitching staff, posting a 3.21 ERA across 179.2 innings of work (only one other Cubs starter, Colin Rea, threw more than 145). But amid that workload, his fastball velocity and his results started to wane: The lefty posted a 4.54 ERA in August and a 5.31 mark in September.

That’s the backdrop against which his performance on Opening Day needs to be viewed. The Cubs decided to once again rely on Boyd to be an anchor: New trade acquisition Edward Cabrera is exciting but doesn’t exactly bring the longest track record, and while Imanaga’s back on the qualifying offer, who knows what to expect from him after his struggles last year?

If Boyd can be the guy he was in 2025, Chicago looks like a serious contender in the NL. This offense should be among the best in the league, and there’s a lot to like in both Cabrera and Cade Horton. But if Boyd regresses, if his ERA starts with a 4 instead of a 3, this pitching staff could suddenly be stretched thin — especially compared to the likes of the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets. It’s only one game in late March, but his performance on Thursday didn’t exactly inspire confidence. And that should worry everybody on the North Side about this team’s ultimate ceiling.

How the Cubs can still build a championship-caliber pitching staff

Of course, all hope is far from lost; it can’t be before the calendar even turns to April. Again, if this offense hits its ceiling, the rotation will simply need to be fine enough — and there’s a path to just that even if Boyd is closer to mediocre than great this season.

It starts with a couple of leaps from two ascending arms. Cabrera already broke out with the Miami Marlins last year; that’s why the Cubs were so excited to trade for him in the first place. Can he prove that the gains he made in 2025, and the new arm slot that allowed him to finally command his prodigious stuff, were legit? And can he find another level with a better defense and a more competitive team behind him? Then there’s Horton, who was tremendous down the stretch of his rookie season; if he can make good on his considerable prospect hype right away, Chicago might well have its No. 1 and No. 2 no matter what Boyd does.

Those two stepping up would be the ultimate difference-maker, allowing Boyd to become more of a back-end arm along with Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. Add in names like Rea and Ben Brown, who I still think can stick as an MLB starter if given another chance, and you can start to see a staff here that wouldn’t make you break out in a cold sweat come playoff time. But that brings us to our last reason for optimism: Despite their busy offseason, the Cubs still have an enviably deep farm system one that will be able to compete in bidding wars for any of the impact arms — Joe Ryan, Drew Rasmussen, maybe even Tarik Skubal? — that figure to be available at the trade deadline.

It’s not an ideal position to be in; there are a lot of ifs above, and Chicago would still be short at least one guy you feel great about giving the ball to in October. But the season is still young, and there’s still a ton of talent on this roster. It’s not time to panic — yet.