Cubs at Brewers; Wednesday, July 30 @ 1:10 p.m.: Freddy Peralta (2.81 ERA, 3.66 FIP) vs. Shota Imanaga (3.12 ERA, 4.70 FIP)

[treego14]

[treego14]

IMA predictin' a win over NAGA!

PER-sonally I think we ALTA win and grin, again!

[Frisbee Slider]

Danny Jansen will catch today, I imagine? That probably means Contreras at DH.

[Brock Beauchamp]

This poll is coming back today, for sure!

[JCREW]

57 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Danny Jansen will catch today, I imagine? That probably means Contreras at DH.

Yeli in left? Frelick in center? Collins in right? Let JackJack rest the hammy. 
 

or start Perk, DH Yeli, and let Contreras have a full day off. 

[Frisbee Slider]

2 minutes ago, JCREW said:

Yeli in left? Frelick in center? Collins in right? Let JackJack rest the hammy. 
 

or start Perk, DH Yeli, and let Contreras have a full day off. 

Yelich getting a day off against the lefty and Contreras simply having a day off both make equal sense to me.

Contreras had a great game yesterday so we might as well give Yelich the day off.

[sveumrules]

The Brewers 102 wRC+ vs LHP (10th in MLB) so far this year is pretty remarkable given Yelich (136 PA of 74 wRC+) and Turang (126 PA of 87 wRC+) are top two on the team in plate appearances versus southpaws. No matter, the Brewers 21 W - 10 L record vs LH starters is best in MLB, half game ahead of DET.

Would imagine Jansen (90 PA of 129 wRC+) will be either DH-ing or catching today with William in the opposite spot. Collins (92 PA of 115 wRC+) and Sal (124 PA of 118 wRC+) have been good vs LHP this year and Blake (221 PA of 90 wRC+) has been fine for his career. My totally futile lineup guess,,,

Sal RF
Durbin 3B
Contreras C
Vaughn 1B
Collins LF
Jansen DH
Perkins CF
Monasterio 2B
Joey SS
 

[Fear The Chorizo]

Will be interesting to see what Imanaga has today - last start, the white sox slapped him around and his velocity was down.  

Cub fans suddenly seem to want to replace 80% of their roster at the trade deadline after largely spending the first 3 months of this season crowing about how great they all were - funny how the mix of typical pitching injuries every team faces and their entire lineup no longer collectively hitting like the '27 Yankees can change perspective.  

What the Brewers have been doing over the past couple months isnt lucky - so impressed with how they can easily be considered the deepest organization in baseball despite not being able to compete in free agency with large market clubs.  I still think this approach hamstrings them in the playoffs due to not having as many impact players as teams with unlimited budgets, but the Brewers are a regular season winning machine that at some point will have breaks with health hot streaks go their way in the postseason.

[Jake McKibbin]

Quote

• Cubs Shota Imanaga’s fastball velocity is down (3 IP, 12 H, 7 ER, 2 K). He averaged 89.1 mph on his four-seam fastball yesterday, the lowest average four-seam velo in his career by .5 mph. He’s averaged 90.3 mph on his four-seam in his 6 starts off the IL with a hamstring injury compared to 91.9 mph last year and 91.2 mph in his 8 outings before his injury. I wrote in April about the variance in his four-seam fastball location, and while you could argue his location in yesterday's start against the White Sox was poor, velocity buys margin for error. If a pitch is a mistake, we’d expect the harder version of the same pitch to have a higher probability of whiff and a lower probability of a barrel. 

  • In Shota’s career, he’s allowed a .608 xwOBAcon and 6% swinging-strike rate on fastballs below 90 mph. Those marks improve to .327 and 11% respectively when looking at fastballs above 91 mph. This is something to monitor closely.

Notes from Lance Brozdowski after Shota's last start

[Brian]

1 hour ago, JCREW said:

Yeli in left? Frelick in center? Collins in right? Let JackJack rest the hammy. 
 

or start Perk, DH Yeli, and let Contreras have a full day off. 

On the WTMJ radio this morning Chourio probably won't play today as a precautionary measure. 

[adambr2]

So important for them to have the same intensity today and not let up.

With no game 163, the tiebreaker is all-important, essentially an extra game advantage on your opponent.

Should the Brewers win today, the Cubs would need to take 4 out of the 5 games next week in the 5 game series to capture the tiebreaker.

Conversely, should the Brewers lose today, they would actually need to win the 5 game series at Wrigley to capture the tie tiebreaker. 

Today is a big game, no less of a big game than the first two.

[Playing Catch]

I think Jansen will start behind the dish today, with Freddy pitching, instead of one of the young guys.

[HarryDoyle]

The Cubs pitching has not been good lately. Let’s take care of business today, take a three game lead and not hope for other teams to take care of our business. I don’t expect much help from Baltimore this weekend. This division is going to be won by three games maximum so might as well get that third game today.

[Brian]

47 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

So important for them to have the same intensity today and not let up.

With no game 163, the tiebreaker is all-important, essentially an extra game advantage on your opponent.

Should the Brewers win today, the Cubs would need to take 4 out of the 5 games next week in the 5 game series to capture the tiebreaker.

Conversely, should the Brewers lose today, they would actually need to win the 5 game series at Wrigley to capture the tie tiebreaker. 

Today is a big game, no less of a big game than the first two.

Strike while the iron is hot!

[Frisbee Slider]

33 minutes ago, HarryDoyle said:

I don’t expect much help from Baltimore this weekend.

Orioles are winners of five straight and going for four game sweep of Toronto. Orioles outscored Blue Jays 30-10 this week. 

I agree with your other points. Just sharing some Baltimore optimism.

[Brewer77]

Hmm no lineup out yet

Nevermind it just came out

[Frisbee Slider]

Batting third and doing the catching, William Contreras. He had a great game yesterday.

Jansen and his .820 OPS against LHP this year will be available off the bench 🤷‍♂️

[TheeAirbender]

I don't want to make a big deal out of this considering he just got here, but Jansen not being in the lineup against lefties is a crime and I will be quite upset if this becomes a pattern

[Playing Catch]

Just now, Frisbee Slider said:

Batting third and doing the catching, William Contreras. He had a great game yesterday.

Jansen and his .820 OPS against LHP this year will be available off the bench 🤷‍♂️

They must still be onboarding him to his catching responsibilities.

[Team Canada]

Not surprised, but yes, this would be the type of game to bat Jansen. At least DH him and have Yelich off the bench.

[Brian]

2 minutes ago, Team Canada said:

Not surprised, but yes, this would be the type of game to bat Jansen. At least DH him and have Yelich off the bench.

Still a great lineup even with Chourio healing. 

[Bulldogboy]

Jansen getting a dose of reality. He's here in case of injury. Not because of injury. Watching Yelich against a lefty should be fun and hitting cleanup? 😀

[Underachiever]

Excited to see Collins batting second.

[HarryDoyle]

I’m okay with the lineup. Don’t want to treat this game like a typical getaway game.

[tmwiese55]

I'd guess they didn't want to mess with the defensive aspects of catching in such a big game and with one of our best pitchers.  Probably still getting him up to speed on that side of it and he'll get out there for a game in WAS.   Plus an off day tomorrow for Contreras.