Chicago Cubs Lineup (8/31/25): Busch Leads Off, Castro 2B, Boyd on Bump

The Cubs won again last night, making it 13 straight victories when they score at least four runs. Twelve of those have come this month, and taking two from the Rockies while the Reds have dropped five in a row means Craig Counsell‘s team is a virtual lock to make the postseason. The Cubs are two games up on the Padres and five on the Mets for the top Wild Card spot, then there are another five games separating the Reds from a playoff berth. Between that and roster expansion tomorrow, they can get a little more creative with their personnel.

That may be necessary with the addition of veteran first baseman Carlos Santana, who was signed today following his release from the Guardians. Cleveland waived the slugger, who is having a down year in his age-39 campaign, so he could pursue a postseason opportunity. He’ll get that as long as he’s officially added to the roster before September 1.

The Cubs’ 40-man roster is full, so they’ll have to make a personnel move of some sort to create space. Many believe it will come by designating Justin Turner for assignment, but Turner has been much better against left-handed pitching than the switch-hitting Santana. However, Santana’s glove at first is much stronger. Perhaps the creativity will come in using Turner against tough lefties and then swapping Santana in if a righty enters. Or Santana could DH against righties to give Seiya Suzuki a break.

It makes sense to send Owen Caissie back to Iowa at this point, as he’s been used very little — one start and eight total PAs over the last nine team games — and could get regular playing time over the next three weeks with Iowa. Kevin Alcántara is reportedly being promoted, so that takes even more potential playing time from Caissie. That’s probably the easiest option because it doesn’t really change anything on the active roster and prevents Jed Hoyer from having to cut anyone loose.

And I could be a little off here, but the Cubs might need to send Caissie down to stop his service-time clock after calling him up earlier than they might have otherwise preferred. A player remains a rookie as long as they don’t exceed 130 at-bats or 45 days on the active roster. Since Caissie came up on August 14, he would reach 45 days on September 27 if he’s kept in the bigs. The regular season ends the next day.

In the meantime, there’s still a game to play. Matthew Boyd is on the bump as the Cubs try to complete their third sweep of the road trip. Boyd started the series opener in San Francisco and was roughed up for five runs on six hits over 5.1 innings, the third time in his last four starts that he’s looked less than sharp.

Boyd has allowed 14 earned runs over those four starts, one more run than he gave up in his previous 12 starts combined. And that stretch included a five-run outing against the Brewers. Water was bound to find its level at some point, and it’s not like Boyd has been bad lately. Pitching in Colorado isn’t the best place to get right, but he just needs to prevent the Rox from outscoring his team for a few innings.

Michael Busch is leading off at first base, followed by Kyle Tucker in right, Suzuki at DH, and Ian Happ in left. Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center, Dansby Swanson is at short, Willi Castro gives Nico Hoerner a break at second base, and Matt Shaw bats eighth at third. Reese McGuire handles the catching duties in this one.

They’re facing lanky righty Tanner Gordon, who is making his 11th start of the season. I was going to try to shoehorn in a joke about The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon because of the T. Gordon thing, then opted against it before realizing this will be his 19th career start. That’s pretty esoteric, but those who get it probably dig it. Fittingly, the 27-year-old has authored some horror stories in the early going.

He’s got a 7.33 career ERA with just 58 strikeouts and 123 hits allowed over 84.2 innings. His 6.44 ERA is a little better this year, but he’s given up 70 hits with just 32 strikeouts over 50.1 innings. Gordon’s strength so far has also been his biggest weakness, in that he throws strikes at a tremendously high rate. That puts his 5.7% walk rate in the 88th percentile, which would be good if his stuff wasn’t incredibly hittable.

Only nine of the 290 MLB pitchers who’ve logged at least 50 innings this season are in the zone more than Gordon’s 58%, but the issue is really where he’s throwing the ball. The heat maps for his four-seam (51.5%), slider (27.5%), and changeup (20.2%) are all lit up bright red in the heart of the zone. Dude throws everything right down the dick, and his heater only sits 92-93 mph.

He’s actually been really good against left-handed hitters at home so far this season, but righties are slashing .364/.400/.606 against him at Coors. Yikes. The samples aren’t huge, so we could very well see a little correction from the lefty batters starting this afternoon. All the matchups in this series have been favorable for the Cubs, but this one is easily the most lopsided so far on paper.

Now we wait to see if they can bring the stats to life. First pitch is at 2:10pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.

Last one of the trip!

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— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 31, 2025