ST. PETERSBURG -- The Cubs were already feeling a little sour coming into Tuesday. They had lost six of their first 10 games and had just suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time this year.
Then things got worse with the news that prized young pitcher Cade Horton needs season-ending elbow surgery.
The Cubs really needed an easy, fun night at the ballpark. And their 9-2 win over the Rays was as easy as ABC -- Javier Assad, Alex Bregman and Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Here’s how all three played pivotal roles in the victory.
Assad picks up Cubs’ beleaguered rotation
The Cubs’ pitching depth was one of their strengths entering the season. But that strength has been pushed to its limits in the early going with the injuries to Horton and Matthew Boyd, who was placed on the injured list Monday with a left biceps strain.
Assad was the corresponding move for Boyd’s IL placement and was called up from Triple-A Iowa to start Tuesday’s game in the left-hander’s stead. He gave the Cubs everything they could have hoped for and then some.
He took a perfect game into the fifth inning in his 2026 debut and ultimately dealt 5 2/3 scoreless innings. The only hit he allowed was an infield single. Assad threw a first-pitch strike to 10 of the first 12 batters he faced. The right-hander recorded three strikeouts and allowed only four hard-hit balls.
“I can’t say enough about the start that we got from Javy,” Bregman said.
Crow-Armstrong’s take on Assad’s outing was slightly more emphatic: “That was [expletive] sick.”
Assad’s teammates weren’t the only ones overjoyed by his outing. Once Assad handed the ball to manager Craig Counsell, hopped over the third-base line and made his way into Chicago’s dugout, he was greeted by a standing ovation from the thousands of Cubs fans who took over Tropicana Field.
“I was not expecting that,” Assad said via team interpreter Fredy Quevedo Jr. “... To hear that, it's honestly a really great feeling out there.”
Bregman breaks out
The Cubs have often come up empty at the plate despite hitting the ball on the button. Bregman has been victimized more than most in that department. Despite owning a 55.9% hard-hit rate -- ranking in the 90th percentile in MLB -- Bregman came into Tuesday batting .150 on the year and mired in a 3-for-27 slump.
He then matched that hit total against the Rays. Bregman picked up a single in the first, doubled and scored in the third and singled again in the fifth.
Bregman said he has been working on getting more pitches into the air. He wants to get more backspin and less topspin. He came into Tuesday with a 44.1% ground-ball rate, which would be a career-high. He’s finished only one season in the Majors with a grounder rate above 40%.
“Obviously, I've been hitting the ball hard, but I feel like the bat path could be improved a little bit,” Bregman said. “Those are the things that we're kind of fine-tuning before the games.”
Bregman was one of seven Cubs with multiple knocks in the win, their most such players in a single game since May 20, 2025 against the Marlins. Their 16 hits Tuesday were a season-best and also the team’s most since that game in Miami.
“Just a lot of guys having good nights, and I think some guys needed a night like that, for sure,” Counsell said.
Crow-Armstrong cracks first homer
PCA was a part of that septet as he went 3-for-5 with three runs scored and a stolen base. He also provided one of the loudest swings of the night as he hammered a pitch in the seventh inning for his first home run of the season.
Crow-Armstrong is off to a slow start at the dish, but it’s worth noting that he carried a .197/.264/.258 slash line and zero homers through his first 17 games last year before he got into a groove. Plus, the Cubs’ uber-talented center fielder is used to not always being at his best in the early stages of a season.
“If I were to look back at the last five years of my professional playing career, it's been a slow start for the first two weeks of every single year that I've played,” he said. “So just trying to keep that in mind and give myself a little bit of grace.”
In 2025, Crow-Armstrong homered twice in game No. 18, which was the launch point for a summer-long stretch of outstanding production that concluded with 31 dingers.
Said Counsell: “Look, this is game 11. Pete's going to hit home runs this year.”