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Series Preview: Pittsburgh Pirates, May 2-4

This beginning of the week series marks the first time the Cubs and Pirates have seen each other since last October’s fateful wild card game—a night those in the Steel City are likely still scrubbing from their memories, especially Sean Rodriguez. The Cubs head to Pittsburgh from a rainy week at home where they won both games against the Brewers and split with the Braves. The Pirates are 8-2 in their last ten games and have rocketed past the Cardinals in the NL Central standings, placing them three games ahead of St. Louis and three games behind the Cubs. While it might seem a bit premature to start following divisional races (it probably is), a close NL Central race between Chicago and Pittsburgh wouldn’t be all that surprising, so this series carries a lot of weight, even for so early in the season.

This is a short road trip for the Cubs, as they’ll return home to play the Nationals on Thursday, but Monday through Wednesday in Pittsburgh could feel longer than some of the road trips they’ve had so far. Let’s take a look at how the pitching matches up for these three games:

Probables

The Cubs will send their three best starters for this series, starting with the early season surprise in Jason Hammel tonight. While Hammel has been known for his strong first halves, he has outperformed even those expectations thus far. Hammel has pitched to a 0.75 ERA and 1.04 WHIP to this point, and has held opposing hitters to a .205 TAv. The sinker and curveball have been a more regular part of Hammel’s repertoire this year, particularly his curveball. The curve was used, at its highest point, under 10 percent of the time last year, and so far he’s gone to it almost 14 percent of the time.

Hammel is opposed tonight by Gerrit Cole, the Pirates’ number two starter. Cole has had a strong start to his 2016 season as well, though not on the level of any of the Cubs’ first three starters. His four seam fastball has been his strongest pitch, and one that he was able to use very effectively in his last start. It’s his primary pitch, and given that he’s averaged over 95 mph with that pitch so far this year, that’s understandable. His sinker comes in just as fast, but it does not have a lot of movement, so he has not used it as much.

Tomorrow night, Jake Arrieta returns to Pittsburgh for the first time since backing up his Twitter talk last October, but expect to see the Pirates faithful out in full force to root against him. Arrieta is an inhuman monster who probably needs little said about him in this space, as he’s certainly transcended into other worldliness.

For Pittsburgh, Jonathon Niese is coming off of a fairly shaky start against the Rockies, in which he was chased in the 6th inning after giving up 5 runs and 10 hits. Niese doesn’t have a fastball that will blow anyone away, so when he’s not locating, he can get shelled. He has also seemingly abandoned his slider so far this year, preferring to spread his pitches primarily between the fastball, sinker, and cutter.

In the series finale on Wednesday afternoon, Jon Lester and Juan Nicasio will take the mound. Lester has had a far more successful April this year than he did in 2015, and some of that may have come from a bit of an increase in vertical movement on his fastball, as well as the fact that he had a full spring training this year, compared to the truncated spring of 2015 due to some shoulder soreness.

Nicasio has had a bit of an up and down 2016 so far, but he pitched very well against the Reds last Friday, going 7 shutout innings with 8 strikeouts. He was quite efficient as well, using just 97 pitches in that outing. Nicasio has relied very heavily on his 94 mph fastball, a pitch he has used nearly 70 percent of the time in his career.

What to Watch For

The big storyline at first will probably be the first matchup between these two teams since last October’s Wild Card, and with both teams doing so well of late, this is likely to be the first of several key series in 2016. But, taking a closer look, Cubs fans were a bit relieved to see Kris Bryant return to the lineup yesterday, taking the start in left field. His mild ankle sprain last Thursday sparked a small scare, but he appeared just fine against the Braves on Sunday.

Jason Heyward remains a bit of an enigma. He’s performing somewhat better at the plate than he did in April last year, though not significantly. These are good times to remember a couple of things; one, that he has consistently heated up in the months that follow, and quite significantly so, and two, that his defense is enough to make up for a .283 wOBA in the first month of 2016.

As mentioned earlier, the pitching matchups are very favorable for the Cubs, but Arrieta is coming off of his “worst” start of the season, a 5 inning game against the Brewers last Thursday. He’s also walked more batters (4) than he had in his first three starts combined, but he still struck out 6 Milwaukee batters in those 5 innings, so there’s probably not real reason for concern. If anything, it’s a testament to how good he’s been if these numbers make some of us a little nervous. Even still, a strong performance tomorrow night with a decrease in the walks given would alleviate some of the worry.

This week presents probably the toughest stretch of games that the Cubs have had this season. After beating up on some of the weaker teams in the National League, they see both the Pirates and the Nationals, so the breezy tone of the season could change in the next week.

Broadcast Information

Tonight, the Cubs are on CSN at 6:05 pm, and tomorrow night they are on WPWR (channel 50 locally) at 6:05 pm, and on Wednesday they return to CSN at 11:35 am. All games are on 670 AM on the radio, and all times are CST.

Lead photo courtesy Charles LeClaire—USA Today Sports.

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