CHICAGO – The Cubs’ series against the Angels opened with perfect baseball weather and ended with the polar opposite, pun slightly intended.
After both teams enjoyed the summer-like warmth of Monday’s opener, Wednesday’s game-time temp came in at 39 degrees. Add in the 21 mph gusts that kept every flag clinging to its respective pole like its life depended on it, and you had the kind of atmosphere that forced every player to take the field covered in multiple layers.
Well, everyone except Matthew Boyd.
On a day when the real feel was in the 20s, Boyd stepped to the mound boasting nothing but short sleeves before calmly breezing through Los Angeles’ lineup. The bone-chilling conditions did little to stop him from striking out 10 over 5 2/3 two-hit innings during Chicago’s 6-2 win at Wrigley Field.
It was the kind of start the Cubs expected from the 35-year-old southpaw when they named him this year’s Opening Day starter. But while he kicked off the 2026 season with three efficient frames against the Nationals, a six-run fourth brought that day's start to a close.
Zach Neto singling on the second pitch of Wednesday’s game may have hinted at another tough outing on the horizon for Boyd. Everything he did after that at-bat proved otherwise.
Boyd used a slick pickoff move to erase Neto, then didn’t allow another baserunner until Neto walked in the fourth. In the time between, the Cubs’ southpaw leaned almost exclusively on a fastball-changeup combo to hold the Angels to nothing but K’s and flyouts.
But Boyd saved his best work for his second trip through Los Angeles’ lineup. While that point of the game marked the moment where things turned south for Boyd on Opening Day, another look at the lefty seemed to make the Angels’ bats even less effective than before. Of Boyd’s 10 strikeouts on the day, six of them came during his second time through the lineup.
The left-hander allowed just two runs (one earned) on the day, which was more than enough to secure the win after the Cubs batted around in a five-run fifth that featured RBI singles from Alex Bregman, Matt Shaw and Pete Crow-Armstrong.