Although I am thrilled to leave for my honeymoon tonight, I do wish I could watch the Cubs square up against whatever’s left of Matt Harvey in Cincinnati tonight. Although I stand by what I said in the lineup post about always being afraid of former aces … I think the Cubs got it.
And remember, Harvey has been especially susceptible to left-handed hitting this season, so tonight’s a good night for Jason Heyward to keep being awesome.
For what it’s worth/to be fair, Harvey was fine his last time out, allowing just three earned runs over 5.0 IP, but even if you exclude everything awful that happened before he came to the Reds, he’s still allowing a TON of hard contact in the air this season. And again, that’s especially true against southpaws (45.1 FB% and 41.5% hard-hit rate against lefties with the Reds).
Opposing Harvey is Kyle Hendricks, who hasn’t quite been himself lately and could really use a vintage-Hendricks performance tonight. Don’t get me wrong, the results have been fine for Hendricks and he always outperforms his peripherals, but last time out he walked (4) more than he struck out (3) and he’s been walking a lot of guys in general lately: 10.1% walk rate since May 19.
Hopefully, he figures that out a bit tonight and makes this a nice, easy, low-blood-pressure affair.
Game Info
Chicago Cubs (42-29) at Cincinnati Reds (28-45)- 6:10 CT on NBC Sports Chicago, MLBN (out-of-market), 670 The Score
Game Thread and Series Preview
Your game thread is down in the comments, so let’s have some good, clean (safe-for-work) fun today.
Starting Pitchers
Cubs: Kyle Hendricks (R): 3.55 ERA, 4.63 FIP; 2.78 K/BB
versus
Reds: Matt Harvey (R): 5.92 ER, 5.34 FIP; 2.42 K/BB
Cincinnati Reds Lineup:
- Jose Peraza, SS
- Tucker Barnhart, C
- Joey Votto, 1B
- Scooter Gennett, 2B
- Eugenio Suarez, 3B
- Jesse Winker, RF
- Adam Duvall, LF
- Matt Harvey, P
- Billy Hamilton, CF
Chicago Cubs Lineup:
- Kris Bryant, 3B
- Jason Heyward, RF
- Javy Baez, 2B
- Anthony Rizzo, 1B
- Addison Russell, SS
- Kyle Schwarber, LF
- Willson Contreras, C
- Ian Happ, CF
- Kyle Hendricks, P