On April 6, 2017, then-Detroit pitcher Matthew Boyd started against the Chicago White Sox in what is now known as Rate Field.
Temperatures were 45 degrees on the South Side, with a 23 mph wind howling in from the north that made it feel a lot colder. He gave up five earned runs on five hits with four walks in 2 1/3 innings.
He said that was the only time he wore long sleeves when he pitched.
“I don’t remember how cold it was, but I think I was below 30 and it’s the only time I wore sleeves in the big leagues,” Boyd recalled. “It’s a weird thing. I never really wore them much in high school when I was pitching.
“It’s a preference. No more than that.”
Although he wore long sleeves to a postgame news conference on Wednesday, he was bare-armed while twirling a masterpiece for the Cubs on a 38-degree day with the wind coming in at 21 mph from the north.
Photos: Chicago Cubs 6, Los Angeles Angels 2
Boyd gave up one earned run on two hits with 10 strikeouts in a 6-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels in front of a crowd of 25,125.
Nico Hoerner, batting leadoff for the first time this season, was 3-for-5 with two doubles while Matt Shaw had two hits and drove in two runs for the Cubs (3-3).
Meanwhile, Boyd earned his first double-digit strikeout performance as a member of the Cubs. It was the ninth of his career and first since 2019 with Detroit.
Numbers aside, the sleeveless look had his teammates buzzing.
Chicago Cubs first baseman Michael Busch warms up ahead of a game against the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune)
“It’s like ‘what are we doing here?’’’ catcher Carson Kelly said with a smile. “He’s pitched in some cold before and it seemed to work for him.”
“He’s got the Oregon State, Northwest thing going,” Hoerner said. “But he was great today. They were constantly off-time with his combo of four-seams and changeups. He was making them swing-and-miss and that was huge.”
Boyd opened the season on March 26 with a Jekyll-and-Hyde appearance against the Washington Nationals in which he threw three shutout innings, striking out seven before giving up six runs in the fourth.
“It’s simple — he just made some mistakes in the middle of the plate,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said of Boyd’s opener. “It was nothing more complicated than that. He made some bad pitches, and it snowballed really fast.”
There were no snowballs this time. The second time he faced the Angels’ hitters, Boyd had six of his 10 strikeouts.
“He established the changeup really early,” Counsell said of Boyd. “Then he would just play the front-and-back game and was able to get strikeouts with the fastball and the changeup.
“He pitched really, really well. The swing-and-miss in both starts is always encouraging. That’s an important indicator that the stuff is good.”
After the offense was shut out on four hits in Tuesday night’s 2-0 loss to the Angels, Counsell shuffled the lineup.
Among the moves, leadoff hitter Michael Busch was moved to fifth, Pete Crow-Armstrong was shifted from cleanup to eighth and Kelly moved up to the cleanup spot.
On a day when balls were not leaving the yard and hits to the warning track were rare, the Cubs still thrived.
Chicago Cubs left fielder Ian Happ high fives teammates after scoring a run during the third inning of a game against the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune)
They sent 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the third inning and scored five runs on five hits. Hoerner doubled home Miguel Amaya while Alex Bregman, Shaw and Crow-Armstrong had RBI singles and Dansby Swanson hit a sacrifice fly.
The wind played a few tricks, but they benefited the Cubs and hurt the Angels (3-4).
Angels center fielder Mike Trout dropped a Kelly fly ball for a two-base error. It was Trout’s first error since 2022 and second since 2020.
“The wind is pretty crazy and you gotta run everything out,” Kelly said.
In the eighth, Ian Happ’s pop toward second base was misplayed thanks to the wind pushing the ball away. He ran it out for a double and became the only Cub to reach safely in all six games this season.
“We’re all aware of the factors that Wrigley has and there are opportunities within that,” Hoerner said. “We want to be a team that respects the game and plays the game hard and when one of the longest-tenured players is doing that, it says a lot.”
After an off day on Thursday, the Cubs head to their first road trip with three games in Cleveland starting Friday, followed by three more at Tampa Bay.
Injury report
While the Cubs head to Cleveland, right fielder Seiya Suzuki is packing his bags to Double-A Knoxville for a rehab stint.
Counsell is hoping the rehab lasts from three to seven days.
Suzuki was placed on the 10-day injured list after he injured his right PCL on March 14. He was sliding on a stolen-base attempt in a World Baseball Classic game.
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.