Cade Horton made his second career start on Wednesday afternoon, this time taking the mound in Miami as the Chicago Cubs battled for a 2-1 win to clinch the series against the Marlins. It was Horton's longest outing of the season so far, pitching 5 1/3 innings of one-run baseball, leaving the game in the sixth inning of a 1-1 deadlock. As Horton continues to gain big league experience, here are some noteworthy tidbits from his start.

This can be seen one of two ways. On one hand, Horton struggled to get into a rhythm all game, with the Marlins recording a baserunner in all but one inning. Horton gave up three walks, ending his streak of nine innings without a walk to begin his career. Factoring the six hits he gave up as well, the Marlins forced him to throw 92 pitches in his outing, the most he's ever thrown in his professional career.

That being said, the young-right hander was able to escape his problem innings just as quickly as he encountered them. Horton was able to escape a bases-loaded jam in the first while only surrendering one run in the process. After allowing the first two batters to reach in the second, Horton quickly induced a double play to put an end to the trouble. While many would prefer to see him avoid trouble to begin with, his ability to get out of it should be encouraging.

A big factor that aided in Horton's promotion was his 10.2 K/9 rate. In six starts with the Iowa Cubs, Horton struck out at least five batters in each of them. Horton struck out five in his Major League debut on May 10 in New York, but only struck out two against the White Sox in his first career start on May 16. Horton only managed three strikeouts today, but was still able to induce contact to get the outs he needed, generating 11 ground balls in his outing.

Horton showed potential with his stuff, recording a whiff rate of 82 percent on his changeup, proving to be an effective pitch against lefties. His sweeper was not as strong against righties, but still generated five swings and misses as well.

Horton's fastball is one of his main weapons. He uses it to get ahead of hitters and take command of the at-bat. However, it was less than assertive in today's outing. Horton threw the fastball 34 times, with Marlins' hitters swinging at 14 of them. All 14 of those pitches were hit, with six of them being put in play, with the other eight resulting in a foul ball. A number of his fastballs were grooved right down the middle of the strike zone, something the Marlins thankfully did not make him pay for today.

While his fastball could've been sharper, it stayed in the ballpark for his entire outing. It was his first MLB outing without giving up a home run, an encouraging sign for the young right-hander.