It has been a rough three days for Brewers fans, as a disappointing (if acceptable) loss to the lowly White Sox on Thursday was followed by two utter no-shows in the biggest games of the season so far. The Brewers’ offense has been missing in action since the first two games of the series on the South Side, and a barrage of Cubs homers in the last two games has put the Brewers behind early in both.
If the team and its fans were going to use this series as a measuring stick, the results have been clear: the Cubs, at this moment, are what the Brewers thought they would be, only with the “go-for-it” addition of Kyle Tucker and the big-market advantage of being able to sign Shota Imanaga.
It will be Imanaga on the hill for the Cubs today as they go for the sweep, facing off against the Brewers’ number one, Freddy Peralta. A sign of a great ace is the ability to end a slide, and that’s what Milwaukee will be asking Peralta to do this afternoon.
Though he has flashed the tendency to play with his food, which has been so frustrating to Brewers’ fans in the past, Peralta has had an undeniably good season to this point. Through seven starts, Peralta holds a 2.52 ERA in 39 1⁄3 innings. His walks and strikeouts are basically in line with what he’s done his whole career, though the strikeouts are a touch lower — the 9.4 per nine mark he’s currently posting would be the lowest of his career, though not by a dramatic amount. The optimist would say that this is a change in approach in which he’s trying to induce weaker contact and get out of at-bats a bit sooner; that same optimist would point to his career-low BABIP and say that it’s working. The pessimist would say that he’s lost a little bit on his stuff, and the low BABIP is an indicator of coming regression.
On the other side, Imanaga has thrown essentially the exact same amount as Freddy, but his strikeouts are low (just 6.9 per nine innings compared to 9.0 last season), and his walk rate has doubled. The results remain — his 2.77 ERA is better than last year — but his high FIP (4.85) reflects the step backward in peripherals. The sample size remains very small, but if there’s any shakiness in those underlying numbers, the Brewers will need to look to capitalize.
Still looking to find a combination that will get results, Pat Murphy has again shuffled the struggling lineup. For the second night in a row, Jackson Chourio will lead off, but it’ll be left fielder Isaac Collins batting behind him and Brice Turang, who hit second yesterday, back to the number nine spot in the order.
First pitch today is at 1:10 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network.