Cubs: Trevor Williams can no longer be trusted in the starting rotation

While much of the Cubs rotation has begun to rebound from a rocky first month, Trevor Williams has lagged behind, and it’s becoming a problem.

When the Cubs brought in Trevor Williams on a one-year, $2.5 million deal this past winter, it seemed like a decent enough move at the time. Despite coming off dreadful 2019 and 2020 seasons with the Pirates, Williams had also seen a good amount of success before that and seemed like the perfect bounce-back candidate for the back of the rotation.

The right-hander also had a feel-good story related to his father that came along with his signing, so most were in support of the signing. Williams’ tenure also got off to a start that was ripped straight from a dream, with his Cubs debut being a rock-solid outing against the Brewers at Wrigley, in front of his father. Since that first start, however, Williams hasn’t had nearly the same success.

In many ways, Williams’ season has been indicative of the Cubs’ rotation, as a whole. He has struggled mightily to work deep into games, with his longest outing since then being just five innings in length. This has been a staff-wide issue for much of the year as the rotation is ranked near the bottom of the league in innings pitched per start.

While the rotation has suffered from inconsistency all year, guys like Zach Davies and Kyle Hendricks are finally starting to put up some positive results, while Williams continues to struggle, and it’s beginning to hurt the team.