Chicago Cubs Lineup

Chicago Cubs Lineup: Murphy Leads Off, Bryant in LF, Montgomery Plays Stopper

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanSeptember 9, 2018

It’s been a rough couple days for the Cubs, who’ve endured four delays over the course of two games. We could say three games since they tried to play Friday, but that game was completely washed out. All things considered, having this one banged wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Daniel Murphy will lead off at second, Kris Bryant is in left, Anthony Rizzo is at first, and Ben Zobrist is in right. Javy Baez is at third base, Addison Russell is at short, Willson Contreras is catching, and Albert Almora Jr. mans center and bats ninth.

Mike Montgomery is on the mound with an eye toward a series split and maintaining a shrinking division lead. This will be his third start back off the DL and the Cubs are going to need him to go deeper in this one than he has in the earlier two. Monty’s been attacking hitters more aggressively and is really trying to miss more bats, so look for that trend in this one.

Going for the Nationals will be Erick Fedde, a 25-year-old righty making his eighth start this season. That unnecessary k in his surname is not very indicative of his pitching, though he did strike out seven over five innings in his last start.

Fedde has only completed six innings once this season and the only start in which he allowed fewer than three earned runs was saw him last only one inning. And he still gave up two hits in that frame. His 1.58 WHIP tells us that he’s going to allow plenty of baserunners, and his six homers allowed in 33 innings tells us he’s been hit hard as well.

He doesn’t give up a lot of fly balls, but the ones he does allow tend to go a long way. He’ll get a lot of outs on the ground with a heavy sinker that sits around 94, following it with a decent slider that can get some swings and misses. The Cubs just need to jump on the mistakes Fedde is sure to make in this one.

First pitch is at 12:35pm CT on TBS and 670 The Score.

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanSeptember 9, 2018
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