The Chicago Cubs will wrap up a three-city road trip over the weekend in Cincinnati when they take on the Cincinnati Reds in a best of three series. Chicago continues to tread water around-.500. They’ve started to make moves, sending Kyle Schwarber to Triple-A and designating Miguel Montero for assignment after calling out his teammate. It seems the honeymoon for the Cubbies after the World Series is over. Can they kick it into gear this weekend against a struggling Reds team?
This series will be contested from Friday, June 30, 2017 through Sunday, July 2, 2017 at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. The games on both Friday and Sunday will be broadcast live on WGN.
Bet on MLB odds at BookMaker.eu every day of the season.
Pitching Matchups
Simply by virtue of playing the Reds, the Cubs will have the advantage on the mound. After all, Cincinnati has the worst starters ERA in baseball at 6.25, even trumping the Orioles and Mets.
Chicago, meanwhile, ranks in the middle of the pack in starting pitching ERA at 4.41 which wouldn’t be bad if not for being a significant regression from a season ago.
Last year, the entire rotation dominated the opposition, all pitching well above league average with three of them finishing in the top-9 in Cy Young Award voting. This year, every single starter has regressed, but the Cubbies still hold the upper hand in this series.
On Friday, Chicago will turn to Mike Montgomery who will be making just his fifth start of the season.
Montgomery is throwing the ball well, allowing just three unearned runs in six innings in his last start. He’s 1-4 overall with a 2.50 ERA and 1.231 WHIP in 57.2 innings split between the rotation and the pen. He is prone to the free pass which is a concern, but has done well limiting the damage.
Veteran Scott Feldman will be asked to counter the southpaw. Feldman, like Montgomery, has made a name for himself a swingman.
Feldman is no stranger to the North Siders, the former Cub allowed seven runs in 2.2 innings earlier this year against Chicago, but is coming off a seven-inning, two-run appearance against a strong hitting Nationals team.
Flipping over to Saturday, the Reds have yet to announce their starter, but the options are not good. Brandon Finnegan is back on the DL. Perhaps Tyler Mahle gets a shot. It couldn’t be worse than anything else this team has shown.
In any case, the offense will have to concern themselves with Eddie Butler. The former Rockies prospect has been pretty good since filling in for the Cubs. By the numbers, the right-hander has actually been the team’s best starter. He’s 4-2 with a 3.71 ERA and 1.351 WHIP. Like Montgomery, he’s prone to losing his command here and there, but he’s allowed just three homers in 43.2 innings, keeping the ball in the park.
After Montgomery and Butler, it would seem like Jake Arrieta would be a more difficult task for Cincinnati, but truth is, it’s been an up-and-down season for the right-hander. The Nationals just ran all over him last time out as he walked six in just over four innings. He’s a huge question on the road with a 5.04 ERA. He’s looking more and more like the inconsistent pitcher with a big arm that we say in Baltimore and less and less like the former Cy Young Award winner.
Given his struggles, the Reds may actually have a favorable matchup on Sunday as they turn to Tim Adleman. Adleman has a 4.62 ERA compared to Arrieta’s 4.67 though, to be fair, Adleman’s FIP is 5.53 while Arrieta’s is 4.17. So, luck is a factor; still, the gap is a lot smaller than the names would suggest. Adleman has, however, given up nine homers in his last six games so that’s a concern.
Power Potential
The Cubs feature Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, but it’s the Reds who have the edge in the power department.
Cincinnati features a heart of the order that has two 20-homer bats and three hitters with at least 17 bombs.
Unfortunately, table setters like Billy Hamilton and Jose Peraza bring a ton of speed but little in the way of on-base ability, both getting on less than 30-percent of the time. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of thump in the order. In fact, Duvall and Votto are also both over 50 in the RBI count.
As if those three sluggers weren’t enough, Scooter Gennett has 11 homers and 40 RBIs in just 176 at-bats. And, even Devin Mesoraco and Patrick Kivlehan add extra pop off the bench.
As for the Cubbies, this offense is supposed to be one of the best in the game.
Chicago has the talent and pieces to be great, but outside of Rizzo and Bryant—who in their own right have taken steps back compared to last year---everyone has been a disappointment.
In typical Cubs fashion, a prospect has come up and made a splash. Ian Happ has a .871 OPS and 10 homers, but all the former prospects who had similar impacts in years past have all failed to repeat including Willson Contreras and Kyle Schwarber.
As for power, Rizzo and Bryant have combined for 33. The only others in double digits on this team are Happ and Javier Baez, each at 10.
Looking For Relief
The Reds’ bullpen was a strength early on a big reason for them floating around the .500 mark until recently.
Cincinnati still has some talented arms in the back-end, but the unit now has an ERA of 4.10, ranking in the middle of the path. By comparison, the Cubs’ bullpen ERA is 3.32.
What’s changed for the Reds? Mostly, it’s just the workload. Cincinnati has a terrible rotation which has put added pressure on the pen to perform. While the Cubs’ lackluster rotation has been a drag on the team, it’s nowhere near the impact that the Reds’ terrible rotation has had.
The Reds have already thrown a baseball leading 305 innings out of the pen. The next most by any team is the Orioles more than 20 innings less.
All of that works wears on a pen. Sure, Raisel Iglesias is still pitching well, but Michael Lorenzen has shown some fatigue after 41 innings. Blake Wood, Drew Storen and others have all been woren thin.
Meanwhile, the Cubs have been better able to control their top relievers’ innings. Wade Davis and Carl Edwards Jr. have combined for 58.1 innings while Joe Maddon has been able to limit the exposure of others like Koji Uehara and Pedro Strop.
BookMaker offers play-by-play betting odds for live sporting events every day! The user-friendly wagering interface on your smartphone provides an easy way to place bets on the go.
Mobile betting lines are updated by the minute, so click here to start gambling on thrilling live action at BookMaker Sportsbook!
