Chicago Cubs Lineup (9/1/25): Busch Leads Off, Happ Bats Cleanup, Rea Starting

The Cubs had a busy Sunday on the personnel front, claiming righty Aaron Civale and adding aging slugger Carlos Santana, but they dropped a game in Denver that cost them a sweep. Coming home after a 6-3 road trip would have been much better than 5-4, though they should not have dropped all three in San Francisco. Their lack of consistency is frustrating, but it hasn’t cost them playoff position.

Looking at their upcoming schedule offers plenty of hope that the Cubs will finish strong, as their next five series come against teams with losing records. Not that it matters if the scoring doesn’t improve. For now, the Cubs need to take care of a Braves team that has played disappointing baseball all season.

Colin Rea has not been a disappointment as an emergency fill-in for Justin Steel, pitching to a 10-6 record with a 4.23 ERA in 23 starts. Two more wins will get him to the career high he established with the Brewers last season, which is really something when you consider he’s only got 36 total wins at the MLB level. Even as someone who downplays pitcher wins to a great degree, I find that impressive.

That said, Rea has punctuated very good stretches with a stinker or two here and there. That was the case his last time out, as he fell short of five innings against the Giants. Rea gave up six earned runs on eight hits, striking out only two with a pair of walks. He’ll need to be better this afternoon unless the Cubs figure out a way to put up big numbers early.

Michael Busch leads at first, Kyle Tucker is in right, Seiya Suzuki s the DH, and Ian Happ is in left. Nico Hoerner plays second, Carson Kelly is behind the dish, Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center, and Dansby Swanson is the shortstop. Matt Shaw bats last at third.

They’re facing stout righty Spencer Strider, who is still trying to find his bearings after missing most of last season due to undergoing an internal brace procedure to repair his injured UCL. He also missed a month with a hamstring strain after making his first start this season, and his results since have been volatile. Strider finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2022 and fourth in the Cy Young race the following season, but he’s already seen a significant drop in his fastball velocity at just 26 years old.

That is likely a product of his recovery, but going from 97-98 mph in his two full seasons as a starter to 95-96 gives him decidedly less margin for error. He’s also throwing the fastball less, down to around 53% after averaging over 60% in those first two seasons. His slider is up to 36.6%, more than ever before, and he’s also got a curveball that makes up nearly 7% of his offerings. There’s also an infrequent changeup that he uses to keep left-handed hitters honest.

Strider has one of the bigger velocity disparities between his primary and secondaries, with the changeup at 86 mph sitting about 10 ticks lower. The tight slider comes in at 84 mph and the curve, which can run into the other breaking ball shape-wise, is at 80 mph. Everything plays up a bit due to Strider’s 7-foot extension, but that really just means he’s getting to where he used to be two years ago in terms of perceived velo. Of course, his extension was the same back then too.

The results have been pretty rough on the whole because Strider’s had command issues in the zone. Though he gets lots of chase and whiffs, he can run up deep counts and may be forced to battle back with hittable pitches. As such, he’s among the worst pitchers in the league when it comes to barrel rate and average exit velocity. On one hand, he misses lots of bats. On the other, he will also find a lot of barrels.

After previously pitching to standard results in the past, Strider’s splits are almost identical this season. However, he has been much better when pitching on the road as a result of dominating lefties. We’re not talking about a huge sample, but a .207/.317/.356 slash line for 104 batters tells us he’s done pretty well. That’s not a great sign for a Cubs team that needs its left-handed hitters to fuel the offense.

Then again, maybe we’ll see Strider’s numbers even out a little bit in this one. First pitch is at 3:05pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.