Chicago Cubs Lineup

Chicago Cubs Lineup (9/30/25): Busch Leads Off, Tucker DH, Boyd Bump Day

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanSeptember 30, 2025

Expanding the playoff field and stretching to a three-game series rather than a de facto play-in game removes a bit of the anxiety, but Tuesday afternoon’s tilt with the Padres is still a big deal. The Cubs were the best team in baseball for a while before cooling off for much of the second half, but, unlike the Mets, they managed to hold onto their spot.

With one postseason nemesis already on ice, attention now turns to another. It was 41 years ago that the Padres played spoiler against a Cubs team that showed fans success was indeed possible. Likely, even. Except it wasn’t, and wouldn’t be for another 32 years. And now it’s been eight years since the Cubs last won a postseason game, so the stakes are perhaps a little higher than for most teams.

It certainly doesn’t help that Cade Horton isn’t able to start this one, but Matthew Boyd has shown the ability to step up in big games. He’ll need to do so this afternoon after a second half that looked nothing like the first. That’ll happen when you blow almost 60 innings past the team’s preseason hopes and exactly 140 innings past last season.

His postseason performance for the Guardians last year was a big part of what led to the Cubs jumping the market to sign him in the offseason. He was already on their radar after making his 2024 debut against them, tossing 5.1 innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts and no walks. Boyd got emotional during his introductory press conference, explaining how much it meant to him because his grandfather was a huge Cubs fan.

Someone was cutting onions in the media room on Monday as well.

“To get to think that I would have gotten this opportunity, knowing everything about my grandfather growing up here, it’s cool. I mean, it’s cool stuff,” Boyd shared. “He would be extremely happy. But that’s the cool stuff. My grandfather grew up in Chicago. He grew up a Cubs fan. I think 2016 was one of the happiest days of his life. I get to be a Cub. It’s pretty cool.”

Pretty cool, indeed. You know what would be even cooler? Jumping all over the Padres with a deluge of offense. Michael Busch has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball over the last two weeks, and he gets things started at first base. Nico Hoerner is at second, Ian Happ is in left, Kyle Tucker is the DH, and Seiya Suzuki is in right. Carson Kelly works behind the dish, Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center, Dansby Swanson is at short, and Matt Shaw mans the hot corner.

They’re facing Nick Pivetta for the third time this season, with the previous games coming back on April 5 and 16, also against Boyd. The teams split those contests, the first of which was one of Pivetta’s worst starts this season. That was a long time ago, though, and it’s hard to make any direct comparisons between then and now.

The 32-year-old righty has been worth the added cost to sign him after he’d turned down a qualifying offer from the Red Sox. After having never posted better than a 4.04 ERA in a season — and that was in 2023, when he worked a lot of relief outings — Pivetta is at 2.87 with a career-best .235 BABIP against. That would normally indicate that his luck is about to run out, but it’s a little late to hope for that now.

Pivetta’s velocity hasn’t ticked up in a big way and he hasn’t made drastic changes to his pitch mix, but he’s getting much better results just the same. Whether it was a grip change or a matter of environment, he is getting more cut on his four-seam. It’s always had cut-ride tendencies, and now he’s getting an extra 1.5 inches of arm-side movement on it. Combined with his 85th-percentile extension, that 94 mph offering has played up big-time.

He has also played with his 82 mph sweeper, knocking the velo down a bit and getting more depth with the same amount of horizontal movement. Then there’s the 79-80 mph curveball that gets a lot of drop out of his over-the-top arm slot to attack left-handed hitters. The sweeper is throwing about eight times more often to righty batters, so he’s got an excellent breaking ball no matter who’s up there.

The fastball gets heavier usage against lefties as well, leading Pivetta to post reverse splits yet again. What may matter more than handedness, however, is what his home/road splits tell us. Pivetta allows about 50 more points of average and OBP and over 120 in slugging as a visitor, so that the San Diego marine layer may indeed have played a role in his breakout season.

Something else to take note of is that catcher Elias Díaz was left off the Padres’ Wild Card roster after exiting Saturday’s game with soreness in his left oblique. Losing a dude with a 74 wRC+ wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but he’s caught almost every one of Pivetta’s pitches this season. Backup catcher Freddy Fermin, who was acquired from the Royals at the deadline and is in the lineup today, has never worked with Pivetta.

He might get a little help from Lake Michigan this afternoon, as the wind is expected to be blowing in at 8-12 mph this afternoon. Then again, that could shift without notice. First pitch is at 2:08pm CT on ABC and 670 The Score. How about winning this one for Ryno and Boyd’s grandfather?

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanSeptember 30, 2025
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