Well, no one said it would be easy. The first rubber game of the season comes during the first series of the year (and it’s against Milwaukee). Let’s see what Tyler Chatwood and his friends have in store for Freddy Peralta and the Brewers.
Chicago Cubs lineup:
1. Kris Bryant, 3B
2. Anthony Rizzo, 1B
3. Javy Baez, SS
4. Kyle Schwarber, LF
5. Willson Contreras, C
6. Jason Heyward, RF
7. Nico Hoerner, 2B
8. Victor Caratini, DH
9. Ian Happ, CF
The Cubs don’t have much experience against Peralta. And unfamiliarity tends not to bode well for any offense, especially against a guy with a career strikeout rate of 30%. That said, there’s a reason all those strikeouts haven’t turned into a ton of production in their short career (4.79 ERA), and that’s what David Ross and the Cubs expect today.
That is, Peralta has had a hard time keeping the ball on the ground during his first two seasons (31.3% ground ball speed) and has allowed plenty of hard contact (39.3%) with it (although he managed to improve in both accounts as the 2019 season progressed). Since it’s a windy day in Chicago, the Cubs will probably look to get up early and see what happens when the ball comes into play.
Strangely, Peralta had strong and traditional divisions in his rookie season: lefties crushed him (.374 wOBA) and right-handers did next to nothing (.185 wOBA), but that totally changed last year, as right-handers ( .354 wOBA) fared much better than left-handers (.301 wOBA). Aside from pitching his change a little more often, Peralta didn’t really change his pitch mix to achieve those results, but he did start throwing harder (about 3 MPH harder on his fastball, to be exact), so maybe That made enough of the difference (again, that was like a relief, so …)? I’m not really sure.
In any case, once again there aren’t a lot of lineup changes, with the exception of Nico Hoerner coming back there at second base instead of Jason Kipnis. Hoerner also moved up one spot in the lineup, pushing DH, Caratini, back one spot. That could be a compliment to Hoerner, it could be moving his contact bat higher in the batting order, it could be an attempt to get two guys with a higher OBP like Happ and Caratini to be directly in front of Bryant when the lineup is turn, or it could be a combination of all three. Either way, David Ross has shown little interest in playing too much with his lineup, so he would expect to see this overall group more often this year.
As usual, we’ll get your full Pre-Gamin ‘post closer to game time (1:20 CT).
Cubs vs. odds and betting predictions Brewers (Sunday, July 26) https://t.co/O4MGdMxDLI pic.twitter.com/R1aDeBskdx
– Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) July 26, 2020
