Chicago Cubs Lineup (10/8/25): Win or Stay Home, Taillon Starting

The Cubs are playing their second do-or-die game in a week, and they’ve got the same man on the mound as in their clincher over the Padres. Jameson Taillon has been their best postseason starter so far, which isn’t say much given the sample and the competition, but even his best may not matter if the bats don’t back him up. The Cubs have hit seven homers in five playoff games, but they’ve got only 12 total runs to show for it.

Even with all his time missed to a pair of IL stints, Taillon still managed to face these Brewers three times during the season. He sandwiched a loss between two wins, but it’s hard to make much away from the matchups given they were all several weeks apart. It’s been a good campaign for the veteran righty, who got hot down the stretch to lower his ERA to 3.68 after it was at 4.44 prior to the calf strain that sidelined him for all of July and much of August.

Just having a starter who looks fresh and sharp will be a nice change, though the Brewers seem to be doing whatever they want. At the risk of further abusing this poor horse, it would have made a lot of sense for Shōta Imanaga to pitch in a day when the wind is blowing in from center at 8-10 mph. Alas. The fans at Wrigley deserve at least one more win before this thing ends, and a vintage Jamo performance would go a long way toward making that happen. Actually scoring more than three runs would help as well.

Michael Busch is back in the leadoff spot and manning first base, Nico Hoerner plays second, Kyle Tucker may be playing his last game in a Cubs uniform as the DH, and Seiya Suzuki is at first. Ian Happ is in left, Carson Kelly does the catching, Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center, and Dansby Swanson handles third. Matt Shaw rounds things out at third base.

They’re up against righty Quinn Priester, who was in play to serve as the bulk man last night before manager Pat Murphy flexed his bullpen’s might. Priester has faced the Cubs three times this season, one of which came as a bulk man after opener Tyler Alexander crumbled early. Priester fared even worse, giving up seven earned runs on six hits and four walks over just 4.1 innings. He was much better in his two starts and has pitched well in general this season with fairly even splits.

The 25-year-old righty has had a breakout season after bouncing from the Pirates to the Red Sox over the two previous seasons. Despite his relative youth, neither org seemed willing to put much faith in the former No. 18 overall pick from 2019. He couldn’t carve out a spot in Pittsburgh’s rotation, which seems pretty silly now, and he never developed the velocity on his sinker that the Red Sox needed to see.

After having a pretty rough go of it while bouncing between Triple-A and the bigs, Priester settled in nicely with the Brewers. A big part of his leap forward this year was the decision to scrap his subpar fastball and go strictly with the sinker, which is now up to 42% usage. He averages around 94 mph with it and fills up the zone with good action that generates loads of grounders.

Always a groundball pitcher, Priester’s 55.7% rate this season puts him in the 93rd percentile and allows him to get away with a lot of hard contact and a lack of strikeouts. His 86 mph slider helps there as well, and he likes to get righties to chase low and away while back-footing lefties. Despite an okay-ish whiff rate, it’s not much of a put-away pitch.

Priester’s firm cutter comes in at around 92 mph and works up in the zone to a greater degree than most of its kind. He’ll throw that and the curve more frequently to left-handed hitters, though neither has been particularly effective. They certainly weren’t good when Priester gave up seven runs to the Cubs back on May 2, though he looked much better on July 29. He then somehow held them to one run on August 21 despite walking five batters; helps when you only give up three hits.

The expected stats say Priester should be a bit worse than what his ERA tells us, but there’s a point at which you just have to trust the results. If the Cubs aren’t able to elevate the ball and they remain passive to a fault on the bases, this guy can carve them up. Here’s to hoping they show a little fight.

First pitch is at 4:08pm CT on TBS, HBO Max, and 670 The Score.