Chicago Cubs Lineup (7/9/25): Happ DH, Berti 3B, Horton Starting
The Cubs laid an egg last night, with their lone run coming on Justin Turner‘s 200th career homer in the 9th inning. It’s pretty funny that the milestone came in garbage time after Michael Busch has succeeded in making the 40-year-old pretty much irrelevant. It’s less funny to have managed a single run in the series opener on a night when the Brewers beat the Dodgers for the second game in a row.
It may take a big start from Cade Horton to even the series, but that isn’t a stretch given what he did the last time out. The rookie bounced back from a drubbing in Houston to post the best outing of his MLB career against the Guardians. Even though he still needs to find a way to miss more bats, you’ll take seven shutout innings any day of the week.
Not that setting the bar even higher will matter if the Cubs can’t scratch out more runs. Ian Happ remains in the leadoff spot, but he’ll be the DH with Kyle Tucker in right and Seiya Suzuki in left. Pete Crow-Armstrong cleans up in center, Busch bats fifth, Dansby Swanson is at short, and Nico Hoerner completes the middle infield. Reese McGuire does the catching and Jon Berti gets a rare start at third base.
They’re facing 25-year-old righty David Festa, who lit the Cubs up in the fifth appearance of his career last year at Wrigley. It was probably the second-best start he’s had overall as he went five shutout innings with two hits, two walks, and nine strikeouts. A whippy mover at 6-foot-6 and just 185 pounds, Festa gets serious extension and has always been a big strikeout guy.
The whiffs and chase rate are down quite a bit this season, however, mainly due to his slider being much less effective. For whatever reason, it’s hanging up in the zone with a little over 4 inches less depth than last season. His 94.2 mph cut-ride fastball is down about half a tick from last year and has been hit pretty hard, but the riding sinker he’s incorporated makes up for some of that.
Festa’s best pitch is the diving changeup he features nearly 30% of the time with the confidence to throw it right-on-right. That appears to have trended up in June, so definitely something to watch for. As Marquee’s Lance Brozdowski noted a couple weeks ago in his Pitcher Notes substack, Festa also moved nearly 7 inches to the first base side of the rubber in his June 27 start against the Tigers. He went nearly six shutout innings with only two hits, six strikeouts, and no walks that evening, so the results were promising.
Of course, he gave up four runs in six innings against the Marlins in his following start. He did strike out a season-high seven with one walk, so the swing-and-miss is still there. The big thing with Festa is that he doesn’t work deep, which could also be a matter of Twins manager Rocco Baldelli maximizing matchups. We saw that with Simeon Woods Richardson being pulled early from Tuesday’s game despite dealing right out of the gate.
As much as any pitcher I’ve previewed this season, Festa is either very on or very off. He’s had six appearances with either zero or two earned runs allowed and two with eight runs, plus that Marlins game with four. He’ll get his strikeouts, and walks aren’t really a problem, but he tends to hang both the slider and change more often than he should.
That leads to a 10.7% barrel rate that falls in MLB’s 17th percentile. He’s pitching to mild reverse splits, but the results vary wildly between home and road. That could just be a small-sample thing, but right-handed hitters have crushed him at Target Field so far. Then again, his ERA is more than two points higher on the road. This one may come down to which version of Festa shows up tonight.
First pitch is at 6:40pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.
Night two in Minneapolis.
Watch tonight’s game live on the Marquee Sports Network App. pic.twitter.com/SFmP4DuFva
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) July 9, 2025
