Cubs all but reveal Edward Cabrera's return date while announcing Giants' probables

This week, Craig Counsell announced right-hander Edward Cabrera would start on Saturday against the San Francisco Giants at Wrigley Field - but that no longer appears to be the case.

According to MLB insider Bruce Levine, Ben Brown will start on Saturday and Jameson Taillon will hope to build on a strong start his last time out in Sunday's series finale. Friday's starter is TBA and one can only assume, barring an injury or illness we don't know about, it'll be Cabrera on the bump in the opener.

After departing his last start a couple weeks ago early due to a blister issue, Cabrera has been on the IL - but now appears ready to get back into the mix for a Cubs team looking for any sort of positive news. He got off on the right start, looking like an ace in his first handful of outings, but since has been fairly middle of the road, entering the weekend with a 4.00 ERA, 4.45 FIP and -0.3 bWAR across 10 starts.

He's given up a ton of hard contact (bottom eight percent of the league in barrel rate) and bottom six percent in average exit velocity. They need him to re-introduce some swing-and-miss into his game if he's going to be at his best - it's as simple as that.

Cubs need more from Edward Cabrera if they're going to turn this around

You don't trade your #1 prospect, a top-100 talent, for a middle-of-the-rotation arm. The Cubs acquired the right-hander in hopes he could take things to a new level working once engrained in the Cubs' pitching infrastructure. That hasn't happened yet, but the hope is he can at least start trending in that direction sooner rather than later.

Cabrera is under team control through 2028, so it's not just a short-term need, but also a long-term one given the turnover we're going to see in the pitching staff heading into next season. Let's hope this weekend is the first step toward becoming the top-of-the-rotation arm the Cubs hoped they were getting when they acquired him this winter because they can't afford for him to simply tread water all summer long.

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