Donn Roach steps into the rotation today for the Cubs after killing all the worms in the Pacific Coast League. Expect him to get a lot of groundballs (well, hopefully), and to need a lot of defensive help behind him. If Roach is doing his thing, he won’t walk anyone, and he won’t give up a lot of deep fly balls.
Ultimately, if the Cubs can get five or six innings from Roach and only two or three runs given up, that would be fantastic.
The question is whether the scuffling offense can do enough damage off of the very good Michael Wacha for it to matter. Had the Cubs not just won a game started by Clayton Kershaw in which Tsuyoshi Wada went just two innings, I might’ve said today’s game was an extreme long-shot.
But it’s baseball. Crazy things happen. Fingers crossed for a little of that tonight.
Game Info
Chicago Cubs (39-33) at St. Louis Cardinals (49-24), 6:15 CT on FOX (and might be blacked out on MLB.tv).
Game Thread and Series Preview
Your game thread is down there in the comments, so have fun.
The Series Preview lives here.
Starting Pitchers
Donn Roach (4.75 ERA, 4.75 FIP, 4.66 xFIP; 1.13 K/BB (2014 with Padres, just 30.1 big league innings))
versus
Michael Wacha (2.85 ERA, 3.21 FIP, 3.61 xFIP; 3.45 K/BB)
St. Louis Cardinals Lineup
1. Kolten Wong, 2B
2. Matt Carpenter, 3B
3. Jhonny Peralta, SS
4. Jason Heyward, RF
5. Yadier Molina, C
6. Randal Grichuk, LF
7. Xavier Scruggs, 1B
8. Peter Bourjos, CF
9. Michael Wacha, P
Chicago Cubs Lineup
1. Dexter Fowler, CF
2. Anthony Rizzo, 1B
3. Kris Bryant, 3B
4. Miguel Montero, C
5. Starlin Castro, SS
6. Chris Coghlan, LF
7. Mike Baxter, RF
8. Donn Roach, P
9. Addison Russell, 2B