On The Horizon: Cubs vs. Brewers series preview

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and in putting together various articles through the run-up to this year’s 60-game season, I realized I forgot to contact Kyle Lesniewski, who runs our SB Nation Brewers site Brew Crew Ball, for his thoughts on his team. My fault, Kyle, I’ll check in with you next time these teams meet.

So you’re going to have to rely on me here in this brief assessment of the Brewers.

I’ll refer you to the “Know your enemy” article I wrote about the Brewers here last February. In it, I noted the large number of changes the Brewers had made over the offseason:

KEY ADDITIONS: Eric Lauer, Luis Urias, Omar Narvaez, Avisail Garcia, Justin Smoak, Josh Lindblom, Brett Anderson, Eric Sogard, Jedd Gyorko, David Phelps, Ryon Healy, Justin Grimm, Ronny Rodriguez, Keon Broxton, Logan Morrison, Andres Blanco, Shelby Miller

KEY SUBTRACTIONS: Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, Trent Grisham, Mike Moustakas, Gio Gonzalez, Matt Albers, Jordan Lyles, Jay Jackson, Yasmani Grandal, Tyler Austin, Eric Thames, Junior Guerra, Jimmy Nelson, Tyler Saladino, Travis Shaw

Of those additions, Anderson, Urias, Healy, Blanco, Broxton, Miller, Rodriguez and Lindblom won’t be on the Brewers’ 30-man active roster for this series. Our old buddy Justin Grimm did make the Milwaukee roster, though, and the Brewers also added former Red Sox infielder Brock Holt shortly after I wrote that article and he will be available for Milwaukee tonight.

Fun fact

The other big change for the Brewers is their spiffy new uniforms:

That’s a good look for them and they have also brought back the ball-in-glove cap logo, one of the best logos ever created for a baseball team.

Pitching matchups (numbers are 2019 records)

Friday: Kyle Hendricks, RHP (11-10, 3.46 ERA, 1.130 WHIP, 3.61 FIP) vs. Brandon Woodruff, RHP (11-3, 3.62 ERA, 1.142 WHIP, 3.01 FIP)

Saturday: Yu Darvish, RHP (6-8, 3.98 ERA, 1.097 WHIP, 4.18 FIP) vs. Corbin Burnes, RHP (1-5, 8.82 ERA, 1.837 WHIP, 6.09 FIP)

Sunday: Tyler Chatwood, RHP (5-3, 3.76 ERA, 1.330 WHIP, 4.28 FIP) vs. Freddy Peralta, RHP (7-3, 5.29 ERA, 1.459 WHIP, 4.18 FIP)

Times & TV channels

Friday: 6:10 p.m., Marquee Sports Network, ESPN (outside Cubs market territory)

Saturday: 12:05 p.m., Fox-TV. This is a full national broadcast, no blackouts

Sunday: 1:20 p.m., Marquee Sports Network

Prediction

The Brewers are very, very different from the team they were last year, as noted above. They are still very talented, but who knows how the new guys will mesh. The Cubs appear to have favorable pitching matchups for these three games. They’ll take two of three.

Up next

The Cubs head to Cincinnati for a four-game series against the Reds beginning Monday evening.