MESA, Ariz. — Edward Cabrera needed just three words to convey how he felt in his first spring start for the Chicago Cubs.

“Good, very good,” a grinning Cabrera said.

Cabrera flashed the type of electric stuff Friday in an 8-6 win against the Cleveland Guardians that showed why the Cubs coveted the 27-year-old right-hander since last offseason. He tossed two perfect innings and struck out three of the six batters he faced. Cabrera was focused mainly on staying in the zone with his pitch mix. It’s an understandable priority for Cabrera, who possesses elite pitch characteristics and velocity but battled issuing too many walks during his five seasons with the Miami Marlins.

Photos: Chicago Cubs on photo day at spring training

Cabrera’s four-seam fastball will be one key to cutting down his walk rate this season. He reduced his usage of the pitch in 2025, dropping to 13% — the least thrown of his five-pitch mix — after his four-seamer accounted for 27.7% of his pitches thrown in 2024. Despite throwing his four-seamer less, opposing hitters still slugged six home runs off it and had a .583 slugging percentage while producing only an 18.1 whiff rate.

Cabrera worked in his four-seam fastball at a good clip against the Guardians, accounting for 10 of his 31 pitches. He recorded two whiffs with the pitch, including putting away Rhys Hoskins on a strikeout to end the first inning. Cabrera knows he must better locate his four-seam fastball if he wants it to be an effective part of his arsenal.

“That’s one thing that I want to do, I want to throw it more,” Cabrera said through an interpreter. “If I want to throw it outside, throw it outside. That’s what every pitcher strives for.”

The Cubs are trying to make Cabrera’s transition to a new organization as smooth as possible. Cabrera’s spring routine over the course of his time in the Marlins organization, spanning to when he signed as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2015, typically involved throwing an extra live batting practice before getting into games. The Cubs didn’t want to alter his usual approach, which meant his first Cactus League start came a week into their spring exhibition schedule.

The organization isn’t looking to dramatically overhaul anything with Cabrera’s repertoire or who he is as a pitcher.

“I don’t think there’s a big change that we think is needs to happen here, that’s not what the trade was about, like a big (development opportunity) here, don’t think that’s necessarily what this was about,” manager Craig Counsell said Friday. “We just think this is a talented pitcher coming into the right part of his career. And the health part of this is a real thing that we have to get right to the best of our ability, and then there’s some stuff that we can’t control. That’s how he’s going to be a really good pitcher.”

Cabrera should benefit from joining a rotation that features two veterans, Matthew Boyd and Jameson Taillon, with more than 400 combined big-league starts; a motivated Shota Imanaga, who has shown at his best he can be one of the most consistent starters in the league; NL Rookie of the Year runner-up Cade Horton; and at some point early in the season the return of Justin Steele. For all his still tantalizing potential, Cabrera doesn’t come into a situation in which he must be their best starter.

The Cubs’ strength is the totality of their starters, and Cabrera’s upside is certainly an valuable part of that. He doesn’t appear to be weighed, though, by any external pressure or perception that he must become “the guy” in the Cubs rotation.

“I think there’s something about that that somewhere along this journey will make it a little bit easier,” Counsell said. “But I can tell you that he has very high expectations of himself, and that probably doesn’t matter how everybody else sees him, how they would rank him, or whatever you want to say. So that’s generally still what’s going to be the most important thing.”