{"id":671597,"date":"2026-04-09T11:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671597\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:57:18","slug":"how-chicago-cubs-phil-maton-is-working-on-early-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671597\/","title":{"rendered":"How Chicago Cubs’ Phil Maton is working on early struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Phil Maton sat at his locker postgame Tuesday, watching video of himself on his iPad.<\/p>\n

Coming off back-to-back rough outings against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Chicago Cubs\u2019 veteran reliever delved into the why behind how out of whack he\u2019s felt on the mound through the first two weeks of the season. He turned to video, both of his last two outings and old footage from previous seasons when he was at his best, to search for answers.<\/p>\n

Maton acknowledged that, speaking within this moment pregame Wednesday in the clubhouse, his confidence is at about a zero, but \u201cI think most of us in here do a great job of you get on the game mound you think you\u2019re the greatest pitcher alive.\u201d Even Tuesday, when he entered the game in the eighth with a seven-run lead, Maton thought his delivery was in a good spot.<\/p>\n

Then he caught his cutter velocity on the Tropicana Field scoreboard when checking for pitch shape data.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Man, I\u2019m throwing 87 (mph) right now,’\u201d Maton said Wednesday. \u201cEven when things aren\u2019t going well, there\u2019s a ton of confidence when you\u2019re on the mound that I can get anybody out, I can do it. But when you do come in the clubhouse after, being real with yourself, like, I know there are changes that need to be made, I need to get better so I can actually go out there and get guys out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maton, who signed a two-year, $14.5 million deal<\/a> with the Cubs in the offseason, knows he hasn\u2019t been good enough in his first five outings this season. He\u2019s allowed six runs, six hits, five walks, struck out four and hit two batters in four innings. Maton said he went into the offseason looking for ways to improve, eager to increase his velocity, improve pitch shapes and move more efficiently within his delivery.<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Cubs relief pitcher Phil Maton is pulled from the game in the sixth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field in Chicago on March 31, 2026. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like all those avenues I pursued this offseason were not the right way, and I\u2019m kind of paying the price right now,\u201d Maton said. \u201cJust really trying to simplify my delivery and just kind of getting back to where I was last year, for most of the year when I was feeling really good with my delivery, efficient down the mound, getting into my legs, and right now I\u2019m just not doing that.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018It\u2019s extremely frustrating, trying to kind of get my delivery back where it needs to be and doing that while still trying to throw meaningful innings for us has been difficult. So it\u2019s one of those things I need to really clean that up soon and get back to where I am as a pitcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Maton\u2019s frustration stems from feeling really good during spring training. Typically spring training is when a player wants these types of delivery and arm action issues to pop up because there is ample opportunity to correct them. He wishes everything had fallen apart in Arizona so he wouldn\u2019t be going through these problems now. Maton is appreciative of pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and assistant pitching coach Casey Jacobson for poring over video and looking at everything, \u201cstuff that I don\u2019t even understand,\u201d to help clean things up and get through this hiccup.<\/p>\n

Maton explained there\u2019s no one cause for the problems. Simply put, everything from his lower half to his arm path to his overall timing within his delivery isn\u2019t flowing together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where there\u2019s four or five things that are off right now and trying to clean them all up simultaneously results in runs in games,\u201d Maton said.<\/p>\n

Working with weighted plyo balls typically has helped Maton clean up his arm path because they inherently make it shorter and more compact. It\u2019s always been a beneficial part of his routine, and the Cubs have tweaked his drill work to try to get him out of his rut. Those adjustments include Jacobson introducing drop step drills to help Maton with his posture and get his body moving toward the plate better, rather than being so rotational.<\/p>\n

Manager Craig Counsell said he wants to make sure he\u2019s getting Maton into more games and ideally giving him a chance to get into a rhythm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s easy to lose trust and relievers really fast, so I\u2019m very fortunate you have a guy that, one, played and kind of gets it, but, two, has confidence to get me out there,\u201d Maton said of Counsell. \u201cIt\u2019s my job to actually instill some real confidence in him so that he feels good in games whenever they need me to get outs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maton knows he is creating too much movement on his cutter right now, getting seven inches of horizontal movement when it\u2019s typically at most around two inches. That is costing him velocity with the pitch, after averaging 90.6 mph last year. The loss of velocity comes from struggling to stay behind the baseball, which is also affecting his curveball\u2019s effectiveness by not being able to stay on top of it as he gets to the release point.<\/p>\n

Hottovy attributes a lot of Maton\u2019s delivery issues to his back leg and how his tempo and rhythm are not allowing him to stay through the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to fix some of the things that we\u2019re seeing upstream and when fatigue sets in, you\u2019re throwing a lot, you\u2019re trying to work on things, the lower body is what goes first,\u201d Hottovy told the Tribune on Wednesday. \u201cSo it\u2019s a difficult thing at times to get ironed out perfectly in-season because you\u2019re trying to be ready for games and also work on things at the same time. But I think for him, he knows what he wants to work on with the back leg and the drive leg to be a little more aggressive. That\u2019s going to lead to some of the things that he wants to do at ball release.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the bullpen to function as the Cubs envision, especially for the backend, they need Maton to get back to his old self, the version that put up a 2.79 ERA in 63 games last year.<\/p>\n

The Cubs believe the 33-year-old will get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhil\u2019s one of those guys that you\u2019re going to count on an inning for in big innings, and we\u2019re going to count on him to get right-handed hitters out,\u201d Counsell said, \u201cso we need that, absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Phil Maton sat at his locker postgame Tuesday, watching video of himself on his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,4245,161,62127,4,4397,6961],"class_list":{"0":"post-671597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicagocubs","12":"tag-cubs","13":"tag-cubs-bullpen","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-phil-maton","16":"tag-tommy-hottovy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116374631519087798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}