Chicago Cubs Lineup (8/26/24): Standard Lineup as Taillon Faces Old Team
Since their sweep in Cleveland, the Cubs have gone 6-3 by eating meatloaf against a trio of teams with losing records. The Pirates have fallen to last place in the division at six games under .500, but they’re 6-4 over their last 10 and should be getting one of their best starters back tomorrow. Having Jared Jones and Paul Skenes going in the next two games makes Monday’s contest that much more important.
Jameson Taillon was once a promising young hurler for the Bucs and he showed flashes of his old self this season before tailing off of late. Over his last five starts, Taillon has given up 20 earned runs on 32 hits in just 26.1 innings. Seven of those knocks have cleared the fence, with two going out on three separate occasions. The lone redeeming factor is that Taillon isn’t walking many batters, with just five free passes in that same sample.
The Pirates don’t possess much pop, but it may not matter if Taillon continues to throw too many hittable pitches. He needs to be on his game early so the lineup doesn’t have to dig out of a hole. With the exception of a day off here and there, Craig Counsell has been going Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V on his batting order for the last few weeks. Ian Happ leads off in left, Michael Busch is at first, and Seiya Suzuki is the DH.
Cody Bellinger cleans up in right, Isaac Paredes tries to snap out of his funk at third, Nico Hoerner is the second baseman, and Dansby Swanson is at short. Pete Crow-Armstrong patrols center and bats in the eight-hole, then it’s Miguel Amaya batting ninth behind the plate.
They’re up against Mitch Keller, who’s putting up numbers similar to those of his counterpart tonight. His results are marred by a pair of recent starts in which he allowed 15 earned runs on as many hits over a total of nine innings. Keller bounced back against the Rangers with seven shutout innings that saw him strike out nine with no walks.
The strength of his arsenal is a mid-90s fastball he can move around the upper half of the zone and a sinker he can use to front-door lefties or bust righties on the hands. His cutter is a decent pitch and often works in the upper third near the glove-side edge, but his bigger breaking balls haven’t been very effective. Keller doesn’t get a ton of chases and whiffs, so he relies more on getting called strikes and avoiding hard contact.
His 19.3% called-strike rate is nearly three full points above the league average, so this one could come down to how aggressively the Cubs get after him. I like the potential for Pete Crow-Armstrong to continue his hot hitting given his lack of desire to take many pitches. He’d better not be the only one, though, because it would be a bad idea to head into games against Skenes and Jones down 0-1 in the series.
First pitch is at 5:40pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.
The start of four in Pittsburgh.
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— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 26, 2024