Among the potential upsides of a rainout is that it can allow a team to re-shuffle its rotation, if there’s a way to snag a little extra advantage from doing so.
And the Cubs will do so after last night’s rainout, pushing Jon Lester to tomorrow, and then using Kyle Hendricks and Jose Quintana for the Saturday doubleheader against the Reds. Yu Darvish will take the finale.
As things stood, the Cubs were going to use a fill-in starter – as virtually every team must do on a doubleheader day – for one of the games, and, although that certainly would have been fun, your regular starters are your regular starters for a reason. With apologies to Mike Montgomery and/or Adbert Alzolay, this slightly improves the Cubs’ odds of winning that particular game. The time for Madbert Alzogomery will come eventually.
The Cubs will still have the opportunity to bring up a 26th man for the day, and they could add a bullpen arm for additional depth.
The Reds have yet to announce their starters for Saturday’s doubleheader – Homer Bailey and Tyler Mahle will take the bookends of the series – but it won’t involve new addition Matt Harvey, who just pitched two days ago.