especially against LHP<\/a>. Bailey Falter and Andrew Heaney just shut them down completely at the tail end of the Reds series in Pittsburgh, and of course they\u2019ll face Matthew Boyd to start the series against the Cubs.<\/p>\nTheir overall season numbers offensively aren\u2019t garish, but they\u2019re buttressed by having scored 68 runs in their four most productive games of the season (including a 24 run outburst against Baltimore that came largely at the expense of position players pitching). The stark reality is that they\u2019ve already been shut out eithg times this year and the 14 games they\u2019ve scored one or fewer runs is tied for the most in all of baseball this season. Injuries across the roster haven\u2019t helped, obviously, but there\u2019s still seemingly a lot better offense in that dugout than what we\u2019ve seen on a day to day basis, something that hitting coach Chris Valaika has yet to truly unlock.<\/p>\n
If these Reds truly have any designs on winning the NL Central this year, well, that\u2019s going to have to start this weekend against the Cubs. Anything less than a series victory begins to bury them into territory from which teams usually do not recover in these kinds of races, and I expect to see them treat these games as such \u2014 especially after Thursday\u2019s day-off to reset the bullpen.<\/p>\n
Fun facts<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s game, the Cubs\u2019 51st of the season, will be their first against the division-rival Reds. They will host the Reds for the first time next Friday. The Cubs still have not played the Cardinals, and will not until June 23, at St. Louis.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
From 2015-17, the Cubs went 20-8 at Cincinnati, winning seven series, losing one and splitting one.<\/p>\n
Since 2018, they are 24-34, winning four series, losing eight and splitting six. They were swept in three series, including a three-game set in their first visit last year. They split a four-game series later. The Cubs swept three games in 2015 and 2016. They last won two of three in 2022. This will be their sixth series at GABP since then.<\/p>\n
(Courtesy BCB\u2019s JohnW53)<\/p>\n
Probable pitching matchups<\/p>\n
Friday: Matthew Boyd, LHP (4-2, 2.98 ERA, 1.227 WHIP, 3.86 FIP) vs. Hunter Greene, RHP (4-2, 2.36 ERA, 0.810 WHIP, 3.08 FIP)<\/p>\n
Saturday: Colin Rea, RHP (3-0, 2.38 ERA, 1.200 WHIP, 3.60 FIP) vs. Andrew Abbott, LHP (3-0, 1.80 ERA, 1.114 WHIP, 3.13 FIP)<\/p>\n
Sunday: Ben Brown, RHP (3-3, 5.44 ERA, 1.554 WHIP, 3.51 FIP) vs. Nick Lodolo, LHP (4-4, 3.22 ERA, 1.057 WHIP, 3.62 FIP)<\/p>\n
Times & TV channels<\/p>\n
Friday: 5:40 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network<\/p>\n
Saturday: 3:10 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network<\/p>\n
Sunday: 12:40 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network, MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Reds market territories)<\/p>\n
Prediction<\/p>\n
This is the first time the Cubs will face two lefthanded starters in a series. While the Cubs have a good OPS vs. LHP overall (.827), they have not fared well vs. LH starters (6-5, compared to 24-15 vs. RH starters).<\/p>\n
As you know, I like picking \u201ctwo of three\u201d so I\u2019ll stick with that. But this one will be a bit tougher than other recent series, and the Reds could possibly win it.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Cubs return to Wrigley Field to open a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Poll
\n How many games will the Cubs win against the Reds?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Reds were hanging around second place in the NL Central, behind the Cubs, until an early May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,1263,283,7536,535,50,4259,1264,161,439,181,7535,4,967,3227,536,1646,173,2411],"class_list":{"0":"post-49672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bleed","10":"tag-blue","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-series-previews","12":"tag-cincinnati","13":"tag-cincinnati-reds","14":"tag-cincinnatireds","15":"tag-cubbie","16":"tag-cubs","17":"tag-exclude-from-stn-video","18":"tag-front-page","19":"tag-horizon","20":"tag-mlb","21":"tag-on","22":"tag-preview","23":"tag-reds","24":"tag-series","25":"tag-the","26":"tag-vs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114559420071811212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49672","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=49672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}