The Chicago Cubs will keep their series opening home stand going through the weekend as the host the Pittsburgh Pirates in a best of three series. This’ll be the first time these two teams meet this year after Chicago dominated the Pirates in their 18 head-to-head contests a year ago, winning 14 of those games.
This series will be contested from Friday, April 14, 2017 through Sunday, April 16, 2017 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The game on Friday night can be seen on the MLB Network.
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Pitching Matchups
Gerrit Cole hasn’t pitched like, well, Gerrit Cole in his first two starts of the season. He’ll get another chance kicking off this series for the Pirates matching up with last year’s ERA leader, Kyle Hendricks.
After that, the Pirates will get their second look at their young right-hander, Tyler Glasnow, who faced a former Cy Young Award winner in Jake Arrieta. Then, in the series finale, Jon Lester will toe the rubber for the Cubs while the Pirates are likely to send Jameson Taillon to the mound.
For Friday’s start, we have a pair of pitchers looking for mulligans on their respective season starts.
Cole is coming back from injury that cost him a good chunk of last season. He’s a career 3.29 ERA and has had big starts in the past, coming up huge in a Wild Card game start and showing he can be one of the better starters in the sport. He was fourth in the Cy Young voting in 2015 when he went 19-8 with a 2.60 ERA and 1.091 WHIP. That pitcher is in there somewhere, but he hasn’t been nearly the same confident hurler that looks ready to throw down on any given pitch. Instead, he’s been a bit unsure, missing his spots, and the results have been likewise off the mark.
In two starts, Cole is 0-1 having allowed 15 hits and three walks while lasting just 11 innings. More concerning than just the base runners, however, has been his inability to get out of a jam. He’s allowed eight runs in those 11 innings, including giving up three long balls.
Cole did squeeze out a quality start in his last outing and does have great numbers at Wrigley where he’s 6-1 with a 2.20 ERA. Of course, some of those numbers came against a vastly different Cubs’ lineup.
As for Hendricks, he’s only tossed one game this year and that didn’t go well. He struggled with the long layoff before he got to pitch so perhaps getting back into the routine of the season will help him. He was flat out filthy at home last year with a 1.32 ERA in 15 starts and hopes to keep that going on Friday.
Saturday’s game features yet another pitcher that Pirates’ fans are concerned about. He looked at times to be aiming the ball in his first start and what made things worse was that ball never ended up where Glasnow wanted it to go. He was hit hard and he looked lost on the hill. He lost control of the running game. He allowed nine base runners and five runs against a Reds team that while off to a great start doesn’t have nearly as good a lineup as the Cubs and in doing so, he failed to get out of the second inning.
Glasnow has never faced the Cubs and that often gives the pitcher an advantage as hitters see their stuff and movement for the first time, but this is not a lineup where he can miss his spots. He’ll have to be a completely different pitcher than the one we saw on Monday particularly as he cannot count on much support. He’s matched up with Arrieta who has pitched well against Pittsburgh in his career.
Arrieta’s velocity has been down in the early going which is a concern if you’re looking to back the Cubbies, but he’s been effective despite that. He’s located the ball well and has already gotten 16 strikeouts in 13 innings.
Lastly, the matchup of Taillon versus Lester of Sunday is scary enough the one that Pirates fans can feel the best about. Sure, Lester was second in Cy Young voting last year and has given up just two combined runs in his first two starts, but this is more about Taillon compared to Cole and Glasnow. Taillon is this team’s ace right now, at least until Cole returns to form. He’s thrown 13 innings this year, giving up two runs on nine hits. In just 20 career starts in the majors, he’s got a 3.15 ERA and 1.103 WHIP.
Offensive Comparison
The Cubs offense is deep and there’s positional flexibility allowing Joe Maddon to move people around to keep Javier Baez and Ben Zobrist both in the lineup as much as possible.
This Chicago team has an above average, and often elite, answer at every position. A healthy Kyle Schwarber and a full season of Willson Contreras may make this a better offense on paper than last year even with Dexter Fowler now in St. Louis. That said, the Chicago offense hasn’t exactly been clicking.
Contreras has a home run and Schwarber and Zobrist have each hit two, but Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant haven’t shown pop yet and the team’s best overall hitters through the first week in a half have been Jon Jay and Jason Heyward—the production from the latter is very encouraging considering his struggles last year.
While the numbers haven’t been there completely for this offense yet, they’re still ranked in the middle of the pack in team OPS and have outscored Pittsburgh by 10 runs in the same number of games.
The Pirates have platted just 23 runs and really need someone other than Starling Marte to step up on offense. Gregory Polanco has a few hits, but just one for extra base while Andrew McCutchen got off to a very slow start.
Bullpen Breakdown
Wade Davis is healthy and delivering for the Cubs while Koji Uehara and Carl Edwards have both yet to give up a run. All three have pitched a combined 9.2 scoreless inning, allowing just three hits and five walks. Save for a home run, Hector Rondon has been just as dominant, striking out four in 2.2 innings.
While the backend is deep and strong for Chicago, Mike Montgomery hasn’t looked good as the big answer from the left side. He’s struggled with command and we could be seeing a pitcher that’s dejected and lacking confidence after losing out on the fifth starter job after the Cubs signed Brett Anderson late in the offseason.
For the Pirates, Tony Watson has been effective in his first few chances in the ninth. Pittsburgh has already had to ask for some length from their pen which Wade LeBlanc and Trevor Williams have given, but their ERAs have taken a hit. Antonio Bastardo has also been a huge issue so far with five runs allowed, including giving up three home runs in 3.1 innings.
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