Matthew Boyd’s winding All-Star journey: ‘One of the best human beings you’re ever going to be around’

In the summer of 2001, Matthew Boyd’s father surprised him with tickets to the All-Star festivities in Seattle, a dream occasion for a 10-year-old residing in Washington state.

They watched Luis Gonzalez outslug Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez in the Home Run Derby. Boyd fondly remembers Giambi’s first-round spectacle, as Giambi splashed 14 homers into the outfield seats in the pitcher-friendly venue. The next evening, Boyd and his father attended the midsummer exhibition, highlighted by a Cal Ripken Jr. homer in his final All-Star Game.

Nearly a quarter-century later, Boyd is an All-Star. As the roster selection date approached, the Chicago Cubs pitcher downplayed his prospects. Of course he did. He offered that he “would be honored,” that the recognition “would be amazing,” but he stressed it was out of his control with the humble sort of “aw, shucks” attitude that has become his big-league reputation.

The reality is, he owns the second-best ERA among qualified National League starting pitchers. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

Now, if you rewind one year, this script might seem stunning.

Thirty teams began their 2024 seasons, but Boyd was left behind, coaching his kids’ softball and T-ball teams in Washington. His daughter regularly asked why he wasn’t pitching. Boyd was recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was a free agent. Beyond a healthy elbow, he wasn’t sure what the season would have to offer.

By June, he was cleared to pitch. He held a showcase for major-league evaluators at UCLA, but a lot of the responses involved minor-league deals. One night, he tuned into a game between the Cleveland Guardians and Baltimore Orioles. Marveling at the energy in Cleveland’s dugout, it confirmed to him the Guardians were the right fit.

He threw his first bullpen session at Progressive Field in July, and Cleveland pitching coach Carl Willis — who has mentored five Cy Young Award winners — was, in his own words, “blown away.”

“I told (team president Chris Antonetti), ‘This guy is going to help us,’” Willis recalled earlier this month from the visitors dugout at Wrigley Field, shortly after Boyd hustled over to catch up with him in the outfield grass.

Boyd’s first live batting practice session in Cleveland was akin to a crowd of Parrotheads watching Jimmy Buffett go through a soundcheck. On a sunny July afternoon, the dugout was filled with Guardians players, coaches, front office executives and Boyd’s wife and four children. As Cleveland general manager Mike Chernoff walked off the field following the performance, he said to anyone within earshot: “How impressive was that?”

Boyd insisted his best baseball was in front of him. At the point in his career when he finally realized he should stop chasing stuff and strikeouts and perfection, that’s when the injuries interfered with his ascent. But the recovery time following elbow surgery helped him zero in on how to pitch in a healthier way, and at an even higher level.

Baseball’s gentlest soul was ready to reveal his tenacious side.

Within a major-league clubhouse, there is an unwritten rule for media during pregame access that is widely accepted and understood: Don’t talk to the starter on the day he pitches. Even if you didn’t know this expectation, most starting pitchers make this clear through their body language, wearing AirPods, not making eye contact, striding purposefully through the locker room and avoiding any unnecessary interactions.

That is a classic baseball archetype, the starting pitcher with a bulldog attitude and an ornery disposition. The job is kind of self-absorbed, following an individual routine and pitching only once every five or six days. When it happens, he gets to set the tone.

And then there’s Boyd, only a few hours before first pitch at Wrigley Field, greeting a reporter by name with a smile. When Boyd joined the Guardians in the middle of last season, he already knew the names of each of the team’s regular beat writers before ever meeting them.

Nice guys do not always finish last.

“He’s one of the best human beings you’re ever going to be around,” said Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt. “He’s one of the best teammates you’re ever going to be around.”

When Boyd finally returned last August after 14 months, he appeared sharp, in control and confident.

The Guardians essentially went wire-to-wire in the American League Central despite a lackluster rotation. Boyd was exactly what — and whom — they needed. He shared intel with young starters Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams. He offered guidance to Shane Bieber, who underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2024. He added another veteran voice — a calm, soothing, encouraging one — to a room full of players in their 20s.

Following that uncertainty in June, Boyd earned about $5 million, per a team source, and joined Bibee as the anchors of Cleveland’s postseason rotation. He was handed the ball in a winner-take-all ALDS game in October, opposite his old club, the Detroit Tigers, and Tarik Skubal, the unanimous Cy Young Award winner and Boyd’s former understudy. Unsurprisingly, Skubal referred to Boyd as “the nicest guy in the world.”

“I told him that,” Skubal said. “Like, ‘Dude, you should act a little more mad sometimes.’”

That’s not how he’s wired, though. At least, not away from the mound.

Boyd posted a 2.72 ERA in eight starts for the Guardians last season, and he allowed only one run in 11⅔ innings in the playoffs.

It was the ideal summer fling that spilled into the fall. And Boyd had the courtesy to call Vogt when it was over.

As Vogt detailed it, Boyd all but apologized for accepting another team’s offer this past winter. The Guardians submitted a multiyear bid to retain Boyd, league sources told The Athletic, but they didn’t match Chicago’s two-year, $29 million structure.

Boyd felt it was important to deliver the news to his manager himself.

“I’d run through a brick wall for him any day of the week,” Boyd said of Vogt.

Chicago was the perfect landing spot. He’s now pitching at Wrigley Field, once his late grandfather’s sanctuary. His grandfather grew up in Chicago and was a diehard Cubs fan. He was able to witness them break their World Series drought in 2016, three years before he passed. Other branches of Boyd’s family tree stem from Chicago or Gary, Ind.

“When the situation came about,” Boyd said, “it was like, ‘OK, of course.’”

As an overwhelmed rookie in 2015, Boyd faced three batters at Wrigley Field, a few weeks after the Toronto Blue Jays dealt him to Detroit as part of a blockbuster deal for David Price. Boyd hadn’t stepped in the building in the decade since. Now, he can’t imagine pitching anywhere else. His kids wrapped up their baseball seasons, and the entire family now lives in the neighborhood.

It’s hard to imagine where the Cubs would be without Boyd (10-3, 2.34 ERA), whose excellent performance has carried the rotation while Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Javier Assad dealt with injuries. As Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said, “We really needed Matt to step up.”

Boyd has already thrown 111⅔ innings this season, surpassing his total in each of the previous five years. Given his workload and medical history, as well as the timing of his last start — Saturday’s eight scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium — he will not pitch in the All-Star Game. The Cubs want him ready for another deep playoff run.

“We don’t know what causes pitchers to get injured,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “Otherwise, we’d be better as an industry. But everything we’re looking at with Matt is in really good shape. I know we got a long way to go. He’s got a lot of innings left to pitch. You’re just really operating with the mindset that if there’s a couple less throws, it’s going to be better. But there’s no signs right now of him slowing down. He’s getting better.”

Of course, there are no metrics for Boyd’s intangibles. It’s that positive energy in the clubhouse, the eagerness to share information with young pitchers and offer encouragement. The Cubs are in first place at the All-Star break with an ace who is extremely polite but could never be considered soft.

“He’s just more evolved than the rest of us,” Counsell said. “I don’t know how he does it. I don’t have it in me.”

As baseball gets handed down from one generation to the next, Boyd is now the father taking his kids to the All-Star Game and creating priceless memories.

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