Chicago Cubs Lineup (3/28/25): Taillon Starting, Kelly Behind Plate, Amaya Sitting
Under normal circumstances, Thursday’s win would have put the Cubs at 1-0 on the season. Instead, they’re 1-2 and still working to dig out from the overseas trip that none of us can seem to just shut up about. The good news is that their double-digit outburst allayed the burgeoning fears of an offensive struggle all season. That’s how it works, right? If we can all freak out about the lack of scoring in a few games, we should be just as excited about 10 runs in the first third game of the season.
We’ll get another chance to overreact one way or the other tonight, as Jameson Taillon takes the mound for the second of four games in Arizona. The righty hasn’t necessarily wowed this spring, but he looked much better last season than in his maiden voyage on the North Side and his work with Tread Athletics may have tightened up his breaking stuff.
Many are worried about his five home runs allowed in three Cactus League starts, which is understandable. It’s also possible he was simply using those 10.2 innings as a proving ground, working out the kinks with some pitches in a mix he won’t typically use. To that end, he pitched 4.1 relatively clean innings in the Cubs’ exhibition against the Yomiuri Giants in Japan. Not a direct correlation to the lineup he’ll face in this one, but it’s more about his level of intent.
The same goes for the lineup to an extent. With a few exceptions due to their accelerated timeline, Craig Counsell often built his order simply to get additional plate appearances to hitters who needed them. Tonight’s lineup is identical to last night’s with one key change: Miguel Amaya is sitting in favor of Carson Kelly. That comes after Amaya hit two doubles and drove in five runs. I guess Counsell was serious when he said the catchers would be splitting time behind the plate, but that just seems odd.
Night two in Phoenix.
Watch it live on the Marquee Sports Network App. pic.twitter.com/9rS5pwDv91
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) March 28, 2025
They’ll be facing 36-year-old righty Merrill Kelly and his excellent changeup in this one, which is a better matchup on paper than they had against Zac Gallen. Kelly has a very balanced repertoire that features a cutter (25%), change (21%), four-seam (20%), sinker (14%), slider (12%), and curve (8%), but only his offspeed was of any value last season. It ranked in the 97th percentile for run value (11), just barely offsetting the rest of his pitches (-10) to keep him positive.
Outside of a little hiccup in 2023, he has always had a very good walk rate and typically gets a lot of strikeouts by effectively mixing velocity and location. Even with last year’s dip in performance, he got a lot of chase with the change. However, Kelly can’t blow hitters away and he lives in the zone so much that his other pitches tend to draw a lot of hard contact. Assuming he hasn’t discovered the fountain of youth, Cubs hitters should see quite a few hittable mistakes tonight.
First pitch from Chase Field is at 8:40pm CT on Marquee Sports Network and 670 The Score.
