Cade Horton pitched five no-hit innings Wednesday in Toronto before the Blue Jays’ bats finally made a dent in the Chicago Cubs rookie.
Horton gave up a sixth-inning single that turned into an earned run after he was relieved. But before that, the head-turning righty left the mound with MLB’s longest scoreless innings streak of the season, with 29 frames. The Cubs held on to grab a 4-1 win at Rogers Centre.
Horton, a former Oklahoma star and 2022 first-round pick, ran his total of consecutive shutout innings to 29 before the Blue Jays got on the board. In the process, he passed Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt, who pitched 28 1/3 scoreless innings earlier this season. Schmidt underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery last month to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow.
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As for Horton, the 23-year-old is spinning his best stuff just three months after he was called up from Triple A-Iowa and made his big-league debut.
Horton began his scoreless streak in the fifth inning of a July 9 road loss to the Minnesota Twins. He followed with four scoreless outings in a row leading to Wednesday’s game in Toronto, a stretch in which he allowed only 10 hits across 22 2/3 innings while striking out 16 batters and walking seven.
Horton, once the Cubs’ top pitching prospect, looked the part of a major-league ace through five innings Wednesday. He tallied a season-high eight strikeouts and issued only one walk — against a Blue Jays team that leads the AL East and slapped a combined 45 runs on the lowly Colorado Rockies in a three-game series earlier this month.
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Horton has now made five starts in the second half of the season. Since the All-Star break, he has a 0.32 ERA.
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