Clay Holmes can feel it in the Cubs’ clubhouse.
This team wants to win.
“It’s been a very easy transition for me,” the Cubs righty said Wednesday. “Everything’s about winning. You’re in that competitive environment, and you get to focus on and do the things that you want to do. It makes showing up to work a lot of fun every day.”
A ringing endorsement for a team that could benefit from Holmes being more than just a two-month rental.
The Cubs hope that Holmes ends up at the very least a three-month rental, his stay — and their season — extending to the end of October. That’s why Jed Hoyer’s front office made an aggressive move at the deadline, parting with No. 2 prospect Jefferson Rojas to pry Holmes from the Mets.
Holmes has, for the most part, performed as the top-of-the-rotation arm Hoyer envisioned him being, allowing just one run over a four-start stretch that had him looking like a Game 1 playoff starter.
Holmes, though, has also been part of the team’s starting-pitching inconsistency, something Hoyer recently lamented and something that’s reared its ugly head as the Cubs have slipped into a late-season fight for a playoff spot. Holmes gave up a career-worst eight runs his last time out against the Marlins.
But despite slipping from the top of the NL wild-card race to the thick of it, these Cubs still have eyes on the championship goals they had at the start of the season.
“There’s a lot of guys here that have signed here for a number of years, they expect to win here. They expect to win a championship here. You feel that, a lot of guys that want to win,” Holmes said. “You’re not too far removed, especially this year, from seeing the 2016 team come back, and people feel that and know how special it is for Chicago and the fans here.
“Players want to feel that, but more importantly, you want to experience that with the city again. You feel that in the locker room.”
Though the focus is on the Cubs’ suddenly murky fate, could Holmes, due for free agency at season’s end, be one of the next guys to sign with championship dreams?
From a performance standpoint, you’d have to imagine the Cubs would be interested. After all, they acquired him as an ideal partner for their best-in-baseball defense. Holmes is a ground-ball pitcher, and the Cubs count three Gold Glovers on their infield in second baseman Nico Hoerner, shortstop Dansby Swanson and third baseman Alex Bregman, all of whom are signed to long-term deals.
Holmes, who has flourished since switching from All-Star reliever to high-performing starter, would also fill what’s shaping up to be a huge need for the Cubs in 2027: starting pitching.
The entirety of their current rotation —0 Holmes, fellow righty Kevin Gausman and lefties Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and David Peterson — is slated to hit free agency.
While they could construct an intriguing starting five with guys currently in house – righties Cade Horton, Ben Brown, Edward Cabrera and Javier Assad, plus lefty Justin Steele — much of that intrigue comes from the fact that almost all of them will be coming off 2026 seasons defined by injuries, including several significant ones.
In other words, Holmes could provide an awful lot of certainty for a rotation that could be woefully short on it.
But that’s for the Cubs to worry about once the curtains come down on the 2026 season.
The next two weeks will be a fight for their playoff lives.
“When the lights get brighter and the games become more meaningful, the rest of everything else kind of drowns out. From my experience, that’s what you crave,” Holmes said. “It’s a drug. It’s all you want is just to care about this one game in front of you, and that’s all that matters.
“It’s not easy, either. You get knocked down, you have to get up. It feels like you’re a million miles away, then all of a sudden, you do a few things, and it feels like you’re on top of the mountain. It can become a roller coaster, just because of how much things mean down the stretch here.”