Tyler Mahle’s first postseason start gave the Braves exactly the kind of steady October outing the Cubs spent the deadline chasing.
On Wednesday, Mahle worked seven innings and allowed one run, striking out six Phillies before turning the game over to the bullpen. It was the first time a Braves starter had gone at least seven innings while giving up zero or one run in the playoffs since Max Fried did it in 2020, back when he was still with Atlanta and is now the Yankees’ ace.
That performance lands differently in Chicago because of what the Cubs did - and didn’t - get from their own deadline haul. Jed Hoyer was linked to Mahle before the deadline, but at the time the right-hander’s numbers with the San Francisco Giants were hard to sell: a 5.13 ERA and 1.394 WHIP in 18 starts. Cubs fans weren’t buying it, especially with Michael Soroka still fresh in everyone’s memory.
Instead, Hoyer went with Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes, moves that were widely seen as the safer answer to a rotation that needed help. The idea was simple enough: add pitchers who could be trusted in September and October.
That didn’t happen.
Chicago was eliminated on the first day of October, with Gausman starting Game 2 of the Wild Card Series while not at full strength and Holmes never taking the mound in the series at all. Both are headed for free agency, and Hoyer now has work to do again - not just replacing them, but also Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga, Colin Rea and David Peterson in the rotation.
Gausman said he obviously wishes he’d pitched better for Cubs in Game 2, especially by not letting SD get momentum like they did early.
"I really wish I could have been 100% & gone out there with a little bit more. But I had what I had & tried to give it everything I had."
Mahle’s path since the deadline has only sharpened the contrast. After being dealt from the Giants to the Braves for Anthony Molina, he settled in as a rotation regular, making nine starts down the stretch with a 1.99 ERA and 0.957 WHIP. Then he carried that form straight into his first MLB playoff start.
For the Cubs, Gausman and Holmes each had moments, but neither pitched like a front-line arm. Gausman finished with a 4.33 FIP in nine starts, while Holmes posted a 4.09 ERA in nine starts. That’s the frustrating middle ground Chicago ended up with: enough to believe, not enough to survive October.
And that leaves one more uncomfortable question for Hoyer. Even if the Cubs had landed Mahle, would they have unlocked the version of him that showed up for Atlanta? The organization has had some bullpen success with reclamation projects, but the disastrous Edward Cabrera experiment makes it fair to wonder how reliably this group can turn a middle-tier arm, or even a talented one still looking for answers, into something more.
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