Whom:
Cubs vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Where:
Pittsburgh
When:
5:35 PM Chicago Time
Weather:
Temperatures in the 70’s, chance of rain grows as the game goes on, wind blowing in at about 15 mph from right-center. At least, that’s the forecast.
The Starting Pitchers:
Zach Davies vs. Mitch Keller
The Opponent:
The Cubs chased Keller after three on Sunday, taking four walks to go with an Ian Happ home run. Keller’s still one of the Pirates’ top prospects, but he’s also still learning and growing and all that, with fewer than 75 big-league innings under his belt.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are at -152 against the Pirates’ +142, implying just less than a 60% chance of a Cubs win. The over/under’s at 8½ and the odds lean towards the over.
Cubs News:
Nothing too big going on at the time this is written.
Cubs Thoughts:
I’m a big win-the-series guy, so I personally always feel great when the Cubs win the first two. House money in the third game that way, especially over the first half of the year. So in that way, today offers a nice opportunity, and it also offers another nice opportunity to get the bats going. Twelve combined hits and walks, which is what the Cubs managed Thursday, was just about equal to the MLB average in 2019, so at least getting to that number (or the XBA equivalent) would be a good baseline. The Cubs realistically need to be above-average offensively, but with the over/under as low as it is, today we can hope for average.
