Cubs’ rotation getting healthier with imminent Edward Cabrera, Matthew Boyd returns, but is it deep enough?

The Cubs’ banged-up starting rotation is getting healthier.

Right-hander Edward Cabrera, the team’s big offseason pitching acquisition, and lefty Matthew Boyd, a 2025 All-Star and the team’s Opening Day starter, are both due back from injury soon.

Manager Craig Counsell said Tuesday that Cabrera, on the IL with a blister, will return during the upcoming weekend series with the Giants.

Boyd, meanwhile, made a rehab start with Triple-A Iowa on Sunday and will make another Saturday. Assuming all goes well, he’ll be, as Counsell put it, “good to go.”

The imminent returns are big deals for the Cubs, who saw their starting staff decimated by injuries in the first two months of the season. Righty Cade Horton was lost for the season to Tommy John surgery, while Boyd has been on the shelf for a month recovering from knee surgery.

“We need healthy bodies back,” Counsell said.

But Tuesday’s other pitching news showed the Cubs aren’t exactly out of the woods when it comes to dealing with future losses in the rotation.

The team sent Jordan Wicks back to Iowa after a pair of brief, ugly outings as a fill-in. Wicks was scorched for eight runs last week in Pittsburgh and got a quick hook after facing just 10 batters — and giving up another three runs — Sunday in St. Louis.

He returned to the minors with a gargantuan 15.63 ERA after just 6 1/3 innings of work, showing the mixed results the Cubs have seen as they’ve utilized their starting-pitching depth.

Though Wicks’ cameo wasn’t pretty, Ben Brown has shone. With a 1.92 ERA, Brown has been the team’s best pitcher this season.

But Javier Assad was shipped down to Iowa, too. Top prospect Jaxon Wiggins is working back from elbow inflammation. And Colin Rea hasn’t been quite as productive in a surprise rotation role as he was last season, his ERA at 4.70 after he finished last year with a career-best 3.95 mark in 32 games, all but five of which were starts.

“Most of the guys on the starting staff have gone through injuries, so when your teammate goes through it, you do your best to try to pick him up and help him,” Rea told the Sun-Times on Tuesday.

“I feel like I’ve been doing this, even when I was in Milwaukee. So I guess I’m somewhat used to it. … Whatever happens, I’m ready for it.”

Rea might need to stay on his toes. To make room for the returns of Cabrera and Boyd, the Cubs have already jettisoned Wicks, but Rea could be the odd man out, heading back to the bullpen to wait for the next injury absence, however lengthy.

“I don’t know what that’s going to look like. I haven’t thought about it too much,” Rea said. “If that does happen, it speaks to the position that we’re in. If we’re making moves like that, it shows our rotation is strong. But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”

With the way some of the team’s other starters are performing, how long before they need to go searching for more options?

The Cubs have invested too much in Jameson Taillon and Shota Imanaga, two accomplished and respected veterans, to just toss them aside. But they have been shaky. Taillon has allowed more home runs than any pitcher in the majors, coming into his Tuesday night outing with 19 long balls on his tab. Imanaga isn’t far behind, with 13 long balls surrendered, and they allowed 10 homers apiece last month.

At 5.33, Cubs starters had the third-highest ERA in baseball in May.

As is the case for nearly every team nearly every year, pitching can be assumed to be a trade-deadline priority for Jed Hoyer’s front office. With growing expectations, Hoyer has shown a willingness to make moves for high-impact players, and he dealt highly regarded prospects away for Kyle Tucker and Cabrera in back-to-back offseasons.

But last summer, when adding a starting pitcher seemed almost mandatory, Hoyer didn’t pull the trigger on a deal. And the Cubs saw their starting pitchers run out of gas in the NLDS against the Brewers.

Can they prevent that problem from bringing another season to an earlier-than-desired end?