The Cubs (48-33) won the final two games of their series in St. Louis to earn a split with the rival Cardinals. Chicago pitchers threw a pair of shutouts in those victories after a string of poor performances the previous six games. Now they head down south for a three-game set with their offseason trading partners.<\/p>\n
The Astros (48-33) started out slow per usual, but really turned it on in May and haven\u2019t looked back, moving comfortably on top of the American League West. Offensively, they sit in the middle of the pack with a .720 team OPS that ranks 13th in MLB. They have 83 home runs, which is surprisingly low for a team that plays at hitter-friendly Minute Maid Park.<\/p>\n
The Cubs will dodge a major bullet this series with slugger Yordan \u00c0lvarez<\/a> currently on the injured list with a broken hand. Isaac Paredes<\/a> has a team-leading 16 home runs and a .820 OPS, taking advantage of the short porch in left field. The other big piece in the Kyle Tucker<\/a> trade, Cam Smith<\/a>, has adjusted after an early slump and is sporting a .744 OPS.<\/p>\n The driving force behind the Astros\u2019 success in 2025 has been the pitching staff, which has a 3.40 ERA and 798 strikeouts. That latter mark is the best in baseball. The starting rotation has had a ton of injuries, but it still has a 3.52 ERA. Framber Valdez<\/a> is having another excellent year and Hunter Brown<\/a> has the lowest ERA in baseball. The Cubs won\u2019t see Brown, but they will have to face Valdez on Sunday.<\/p>\n Houston has the second-best bullpen in the league as closer Josh Hader<\/a> continues to dominate with a 1.73 ERA and 21 saves. Bryan Abreu<\/a> and Bennett Sousa<\/a> are two of the top setup men for Hader, so it would behoove the Cubs not to fall behind late in this series.<\/p>\n The Astros are a very good team and this is going to be a difficult test. The North Siders bounced back nicely from a tough stretch with a couple of impressive wins in St. Louis, now they need to continue that strong play to get over .500 on the trip.<\/p>\n Game Time and Broadcast Info<\/p>\n Friday, June 27 at 7:10pm CT on Marquee.Saturday, June 28 at 6:15pm CT on FOX.Sunday, June 29 at 1:10pm CT on Marquee.<\/p>\n Starting Pitchers<\/p>\n What to Watch For<\/p>\n Michael Busch<\/a> had four hits, including a home run, in his last two games.Carson Kelly<\/a> has six hits in his last four games after slumping.Taillon and Rea each got beat up in their last starts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs (48-33) won the final two games of their series in St. Louis to earn a split…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,34,158,139,54,3211,5173,37,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-134747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-carson-kelly","11":"tag-colin-rea","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-houston-astros","14":"tag-houstonastros","15":"tag-jameson-taillon","16":"tag-michael-busch","17":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114755281242051370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}