Chicago Cubs Lineup: Taylor Davis Goes Behind the Plate, As Contreras and Zobrist Get the Night Off
The Cubs have a chance to sweep the Mets at Wrigley Field tonight, immediately after being swept by the Brewers. Given the impending Cardinals series over the weekend, that’d probably be a good idea.
Here’s the Cubs lineup:
- Jon Jay, CF
- Kris Bryant, 3B
- Anthony Rizzo, 1B
- Ian Happ, 2B
- Kyle Schwarber, LF
- Javy Baez, SS
- Jason Heyward, RF
- Taylor Davis, C
- Jen-Ho Tseng, P
With Ben Zobrist and Willson Contreras out of the lineup tonight, Jon Jay leads off and plays center field, while Ian Happ bats cleanup and plays second base.
Additionally, and perhaps more notably, Taylor Davis is taking over behind the plate for Jen-Ho Tseng’s debut, which works out nicely as Davis was Tseng’s catcher at Iowa earlier this year. The familiarity will likely provide a small comfort in an otherwise pretty intense day (Major League debut at Wrigley during a divisional race. Woof.).
On the absence of Contreras, I think we all knew this was coming (even before Hoyer mentioned it earlier today). He’s already made back-to-back starts, and there’s a day game tomorrow after a night-game tonight. If you want Contreras to play more over the weekend (obviously you do), this was necessary.
Similarly, on the absence of Ben Zobrist, well, maybe that makes some sense too. Sure, he’s been going OFF lately (.349/.453/.512, 155 wRC+ since August 29), but he’s still 36 years old and is probably going to start/leadoff all three against the Cardinals this weekend. If a day off today is necessary to get him 100% for tomorrow, then so be it.
As usual, we’ll have your full Pre-Gamin’ closer to game time (7:05 CT).
