NEW YORK — No pitch works very well without conviction. If a pitcher’s heart isn’t in it, if he doesn’t truly believe in his choice, he’s in trouble. This is especially true of the changeup because the dominant index finger is merely along for the ride. The other fingers do the steering.
Now imagine throwing the first changeup of your major league career in a packed stadium on a Saturday night in New York City. Your wife is there. So are your parents, your four siblings, your grandparents and your friends. You’ve thrown 71 pitches already, your lead is down to a run, and the batter is a $765 million slugger with the best eye in the sport.
To throw that pitch, in that situation, you’d need an audacious level of trust. Think of new parents strapping their firstborn into the car seat for the ride home from the hospital. This is how Cade Horton arrived, safe and sound, in the major leagues.
Horton, the Chicago Cubs’ heralded 23-year-old right-hander, won his debut over the Mets 6-5 by outsmarting the great Juan Soto. With one out, one on, and the bullpen in action behind him, Horton picked a 2-2 count to throw his changeup to Soto.
The pitch flopped down and away as Soto flailed at it, tentatively; the great ones seldom swing so awkwardly. The graphic on Fox called it a slider. The catcher, Miguel Amaya, had called for a different pitch at first. But that was a changeup, all right, and a beauty.
Cade Horton is a 4seam and slider pitcher, but he struck out Juan Soto with a changeup here pic.twitter.com/8DLuz7LuIY
— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) May 11, 2025
“To be honest, it was a shake by him,” Amaya said. “He shook (off) a fastball up, and he wanted that changeup. He executed the right way he needed to execute it. It was a perfect changeup to put him out.
“That tells you right away the kind of pitcher he is. That’s why he’s here and helping us.”
After Soto struck out, Pete Alonso lined to third to end Horton’s night. Horton worked four innings and earned the victory because, technically, this was a relief appearance; the veteran Brad Keller had trotted in from the bullpen as an opener in the first inning.
Horton warmed up out there, too, of course, but then he retreated to the dugout. He hadn’t made a relief appearance in three seasons as a pro and wanted this to feel like a start. As soon as Kyle Tucker flied out to end the top of the second, Horton burst up the steps and hopped over the third base line like Turk Wendell, who pitched for the Cubs and Mets before Horton was born.
That was a habit, Horton explained, from his days at the University of Oklahoma, which also recruited him as a quarterback. The Cubs drafted Horton seventh overall in 2022, and he impressed the veterans in spring training.
“The stuff is elite,” starter Matthew Boyd said before batting practice on Saturday. “That’s why he’s a first-rounder. I think what really struck me was just his professionalism as a young guy in spring training, kind of his tenacity on the mound. He would go after guys, and that’s something that you really can’t teach. So it’s an awesome mentality to have, and it will serve him well at this level.”
Horton went after his first batter, Brandon Nimmo, who took six pitches in a row: two strikes, three balls, then strike three at 96 mph. Horton would strike out four more hitters — two on sliders, one with a curveball and Soto on the change — without a walk.
He had a rough fourth inning: two singles, a wild pitch, and a two-out, three-run homer by Brett Baty off a flat slider. But otherwise, Horton kept the Mets scoreless, and four relievers held the lead.
“Nice job,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Obviously, the three-run homer is a big play in the game, but he threw a ton of strikes. I think he learned that his stuff definitely works here, plays here. Just in the zone, that was the big thing.”
Horton, who threw 49 strikes among his 77 pitches, had been to only a handful of MLB games. “Being from Oklahoma, there wasn’t much opportunity,” he said. He also said he was more nervous when he reported on Friday than he was when he pitched. The bus got stuck in traffic, he said, but otherwise Saturday was fun.
“It was really cool,” Horton said. “I just wanted to take it easy, slow the game down, and just focus on making pitches. Looking back now, that third deck looked high up there, but just settling in and finding the target.”
First big league strikeout for Cade Horton and his family loves it 🔥
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/kUGE2LFI9C
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) May 10, 2025
Asked what he would remember most, Horton mentioned the bus ride, the national telecast, and sharing the moment with a cheering section of 18 people. His parents, Mike and Cari, beamed from their seats in section 121 at Citi Field, 23 rows above the Cubs’ dugout.
“We lost it,” Cari Horton told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal on the Fox telecast, describing the FaceTime call when Cade told them he reached the majors. “It was just crazy. I was in a parking lot, screaming like a maniac.”
Horton earned the promotion by excelling in six starts for Triple-A Iowa, with a 1.24 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 29 innings. He filled the spot of Shota Imanaga, who has a hamstring injury, and carries the promise of being the rare homegrown pitcher to win big for Chicago.
The Cubs have drafted plenty of successful pitchers, and a few, like Greg Maddux, Rick Reuschel and Lee Smith, became stars at Wrigley Field. More recently, though, they’ve traded a credible 21st-century rotation — Dylan Cease, Jon Garland, Kyle Lohse, Ricky Nolasco and Dontrelle Willis — before any of those pitchers appeared for the Cubs.
The last drafted pitchers to make much of an impact with the Cubs were Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, who nearly carried the team to the 2003 World Series. When the Cubs finally made it in 2016, their entire World Series staff was acquired from other organizations.
The Cubs are 23-17 now, a better record through 40 games than in 2018, the last full season in which they reached the playoffs. This wasn’t October, but it was the kind of atmosphere and competition Horton could face when it mattered most.
The changeup to Soto showed a fearlessness that should play well.
“That pitch is overlooked,” he said. “I hadn’t thrown it all day, and that’s the exact reason I wanted to use it there, because I knew he probably wasn’t expecting a changeup.”
Teams will be aware of it now. They will be paying attention to Horton for a long time.
(Photo: Gregory Fisher / Imagn Images)