NEWSLETTER
If you were going to drop two out of three to the scuffling St. Louis Cardinals, I guess it’s better that it was the first two. So please, Cubs. Win tonight. I simply cannot take a four-game losing streak, including a sweep against the NL’s worst team, at home into the off-day tomorrow. Can’t do it. Need a win. Here’s a look at the Chicago Cubs lineup for the finale against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field.
Chicago Cubs Lineup:
- Nick Madrigal, 2B
- Dansby Swanson, SS
- Ian Happ, LF
- Seiya Suzuki, RF
- Patrick Wisdom, 3B
- Cody Bellinger, CF
- Trey Mancini, 1B
- Yan Gomes, C
- Chris Morel, DH
The Cardinals have a good lefty, Jordan Montgomery, on the mound tonight, and he’s been absolutely brutal on left-handed hitters throughout his career:
vs. LHH: .209/.251/.305 (.245 wOBA)
vs. RHH: .252/.307/.407 (.310 wOBA)
And this season has been no exception. So the Cubs lineup looks a little different this evening. No Eric Hosmer (replaced by Chris Morel at DH), no Tucker Barnhart (replaced by Yan Gomes behind the plate), and no Matt Mervis (replaced by Trey Mancini at first base). Those are all the correct calls for this game. Full stop. I don’t even hate moving Bellinger down.
Ian Happ is only guy to survive the benching, and he’s certainly got an uphill battle tonight.
Also, in case you missed it, Yan Gomes was reactivated — replacing Miguel Amaya, who’ll head back to the minors, but up a level to Triple-A Iowa (it’s truly a promotion!) — and is starting tonight behind the plate. You can read more about that decision right here, but I believe it was the right call. It was great to have Amaya come up – and I genuinely loved what I saw from him – but his time will come soon enough.
For now, he’ll get some more time at Iowa and is going to play a HUGE part in the future of this franchise. The reason you can’t just switch from Gomes/Barnhart to Gomes/Amaya right now is that it’s just WAY too early in the season to drop Tucker Barnhart entirely. If one or both of Gomes/Amaya got hurt after you dropped Barnhart, we’d be screwed. He’ll be back, and permanently, soon enough.
St. Louis Cardinals Lineup:
- Tommy Edman, 2B
- Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
- Willson Contreras, C
- Nolan Arenado, 3B
- Dylan Carloson, CF
- Juan Yepez, LF
- Paul DeJong, SS
- Lars Nootbaar, RF
- Andrew Knizner, C
Pitching Matchup:
Chicago Cubs: Justin Steele, LHP
What is there to say about Justin Steele that hasn’t been said already? The Cubs 27-year-old southpaw is absolutely locked in right now, managing contact as good as any starter in the game while walking fewer batters than ever. He hasn’t been PERFECT, of course, but it’s hard to get much cooking against him with a .197 batting average and a 6.7% walk rate. Indeed, he’s already tied 2015 Jake Arrieta with 14 straight starts allowing 2ER or fewer. One more and he’ll be the lone holder of the Cubs all-time record in that regard. Just an absolute stud. The Cubs lineup has been a little lifeless lately, so they’re really going to need him to ball out tonight.
- Goldschmidt: 3-7, HR, K
- Arenado: 2-6
- Edman: 3-5, 2BB
- Mancini: 11-32, HR, 4BB, 7K
- Gomes: 5-13, 3K
- Madrigal: 2-10, K
- Happ: 0-9, 3K
St. Louis Cardinals: Jordan Montgomery, LHP
Jordan Montgomery has been pretty darn good this season, lasting at least 6.0 innings in five of seven starts with a overall 3.29 ERA. He’s struck out an impressive 38 batters over those seven games with just nine walks total. He’s also generating a lot of ground balls and has managed the contact just fine (38.6 hard%, 88.8 MPH average exit velocity). Montgomery is hardly elite in any one category, but he does everything well. He also absolutely crushes left-handed batters, so I’m not surprised to see a few extra rightes in the Cubs lineup tonight.
Broadcast Info:
Chicago Cubs (17-19) vs St. Louis Cardinals (13-24) at 6:40 pm CT on Marquee Sports Network, MLBN, 670 The Score
