Alternate Title: The Best Dodgers Pitchers Are Scared to Face the Cubs Lineup.
Last night on X, after the Cubs took down the Phillies for the third straight game, extending their winning streak to a league-best eight games, I posted my truth, ugly as it may be: “The smugness I feel when the Cubs are winning…. Man that’s the good stuff.” I don’t know what to tell ya, but boy do I look down on the rest of the league like peasants in my kingdom when the Cubs are rolling. And they’re not even in first place yet. Lol.
In any case, in reply to that post, Keegan Strauch (@Keegs2) pointed out a ridiculously great note about this upcoming series against the Dodgers starting tomorrow: In this upcoming three-game series in L.A., the Cubs are going to miss Yoshinobu Yammamoto, Shohei Ohtani, and Tyler Glasnow. And my friends, let me tell you, that is an INCREDIBLE stroke of luck.
Yamamoto: 5 starts, 2.48 ERA (32.2 IP) Ohtani: 4 starts, 0.38 ERA (24.0 IP) Glasnow: 4 starts, 3.24 ERA (25.0 IP)Not a single one of them have made a start shorter than 6.0 full innings this season. And all of them have one or many elite pitching stats or characteristics. There’s really not even a point in laying those out there. You know their names, you know who they are. Missing any one of those guys would have been nice. Missing all three is an absolute dream.
Which is not to say the Cubs are going to win. The Dodgers lineup is still, uh, quite good. In fact, their position players are carrying the highest wRC+ (133) and WAR (7.0) in all of baseball. For a little bit of context, the Cubs are second/third in the NL, with a 118 wRC+ and 6.0 WAR total. Plus, this series is in their house, and West Coast trips are always difficult.
But at the same time, as is the point of this post, there really is a significant dropoff in the quality of pitchers the Cubs will face.
Friday’s probable starter, Emmett Sheehan, is a righty (good for the Cubs lineup) with a 5.85 ERA through four starts this season. He was a lot better last year, swinging in and out of the Dodgers rotation, but he’s not Yoshinobu Yammamoto.
Saturday’s probable starter, Roki Sasaki, obviously has all the talent in the world and a ton of velocity to go with it, but he still hasn’t quite figured out the big leagues: 4.46 ERA over 10 outings last season, 6.11 ERA in 4 starts this year.
To be fair, Sunday’s probable starter, Justin Wrobleski, is actually off to a brilliant start this season, but his two best games, while excellent, came against the struggling Mets and very bad Rockies. Still, I don’t think you can just ignore his performance when it’s this good:
vsNYM: 8.0 IP, 2H, 0ER, 0BB, 2K @COL: 7.0 IP, 8H, 1ER, 0BB, 3KBut the good news is that he’s scheduled to face Shota Imanaga, who is by far the Cubs best starting pitcher at the moment. So even that matchup tilts the balance at least closer in the Cubs direction.
Of course, the Cubs are starting Jameson Taillon and Colin Rea in the first two games, so it’s not exactly like the Dodgers had a terrible draw either.
But wait, there’s more!
Although I had a sense that the Dodgers bullpen wasn’t performing quite as well as expected (I knew Edwin Diaz was struggling), I didn’t quite realize how mediocre they’ve been as a unit this season: 4.27 ERA (15th in MLB), 4 blown saves. They still have some heavy hitters – Tanner Scott, for example, seems to have shaken off the rust that slowed him down last season (0.93 ERA through 11 games). But on the whole, it just feels like as good a time as any to head to the West Coast to face the league’s best team.
And it doesn’t hurt that the Cubs went on this little winning streak, one they hope to continue this afternoon, just before facing the Dodgers and the Padres (who are also absolutely ROLLING at the moment) on the West Coast.
So, yeah, good news. Let’s hope it matters! And let’s win this game today just for a little extra buffer, eh?
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