Chicago Cubs Lineup

Chicago Cubs Lineup (4/5/25): New Chicago Blues Alternate Uniforms Debut, Boyd Starting

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanApril 5, 2025

Between the Cubs beating the Padres and the Phillies taking down the Dodgers, there are no undefeated teams left in baseball. There are, however, three teams in the NL West with just one loss. Contrast that with the AL Central, in which no teams are at the .500 mark heading into Saturday’s games. Back to a topic you all care about, the Cubs enter the second game of their series with San Diego sitting in first place.

Someone on X told me this morning that “nobody with any critical thinking skills believes they are a threat to do anything beyond [the division],” so I guess we’ll just have to enjoy their fake competitiveness in the meantime. While I have enough common sense to understand the Cubs aren’t as good as the Dodgers — and probably some other NL teams — I’m also dumb enough to believe that the best teams don’t always win. Adding an elite arm at the deadline would give the Cubs a puncher’s chance against anyone.

They’ve got to get to the fight first, but still. Matt Boyd was their biggest free agent addition of the offseason and he looked very good against the Diamondbacks last week. The lefty threw 92 pitches over five scoreless innings, striking out five with four hits and three walks. His 79 mph changeup was particularly effective as he tunneled it with a fastball that sat over 14 ticks higher.

His four-seam was thrown harder than last season and the change slower, and he appeared to be getting less ride on the former with a little less depth on the latter. That might seem like a bad thing if the pitches were examined in a vacuum, but it may be more deceptive in practice. The velo bump is something to keep an eye on, as Boyd has never averaged more than 92.6 mph in a season. Will we see him dip back down over time, or is this a legit trend?

The offense certainly seems to be legit, even if you don’t think too highly of collecting three runs on as many hits. Yet the Cubs drew seven walks to just five strikeouts while getting small contributions up and down the lineup. Good teams find ways to scratch out runs and win games even when things aren’t necessarily going their way, and that’s something we’re starting to see this season.

Ian Happ leads off in left, Kyle Tucker is in right, and Seiya Suzuki is the DH to get this one going. Michael Busch cleans up at first, Dansby Swanson is the shortstop, Nico Hoerner is at second, and Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center. Matt Shaw handles the hot corner and Carson Kelly is behind the dish.

They’re facing surprise pickup Nick Pivetta, who the cash-strapped Padres picked up despite the penalties associated with his declination of a qualifying offer from the Red Sox. His four-year, $55 million deal comes with clauses indemnifying the team should he suffer a major injury, plus he’s earning a paltry $1 million salary this season in addition to half of his $3 million signing bonus. The rest of the bonus is added to next year’s $19 million salary, after which he can opt out of the remaining two years and $32 million. Pivetta can opt out again after the third year, but there’s a wrinkle that could void all of that.

As first reported by the AP’s Ronald Blum, it’s possible for Pivetta’s $14 million for 2027 to become a club option. That will happen “if at any point through 2026 he has a specified injury or surgery related to the injury and is on the injured list for more than 130 consecutive days in any season or in a one-year period.” Now that I think about it, that might be the worst possible outcome for both sides. Pivetta will miss out on most of his money and will hit free agency as damaged goods, while the Padres will have paid a steep QO price of one year of as-yet-unknown production.

To that end, Pivetta was elite in his first start against the Braves last week. The righty went seven one-hit innings on just 82 pitches, punching out four with no walks. His 93 mph cut-ride fastball was so good it almost went off Baseball Savant’s induced break chart, as did his huge bender. That’s basically the exact opposite of what I wrote about Boyd’s stuff.

Pivetta is able to do this because he’s got a super over-the-top release that generates extreme north-south movement. He’s also a supinator, or that’s my educated guess, hence the cut on the four-seam and the lack of a changeup. He used to throw a change and splitter sparingly and might benefit from working with a two-seam orientation, either with a kick or chitter grip, that doesn’t require pronation.

It’s impossible to draw firm conclusions from just one outing, but Pivetta favored the curve over the sweeper after having those pitches flipped in the past. He only adopted the sweeper in 2023, throwing it infrequently that season before upping it to 26% last year and ditching the slider. Though Statcast says he threw the slider 3% of the time, the extreme difference in its depth over previous seasons indicates those were simply curveballs that didn’t break quite as well.

In any case, it looks like Pivetta may really be leaning into his natural tendencies with the fastball/curve combo. His sweeper and cutter can be that much more effective as tertiary offerings, generating ugly swings against right-handed hitters. Lefties will get a steady diet of curveballs, so Happ and Tucker need to be sitting on the hook early and often.

First pitch from a chilly Wrigley Field is at 1:20pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanApril 5, 2025
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