Cubs Wild Card Series Game 1 lineup: Javier Baez dropped to seventh

Javier Baez began this season batting mostly third, but as he slumped, so did his spot in the lineup, eventually batting mostly sixth or seventh.

Seventh is where you’ll find Javy in today’s lineup:

Otherwise this is the lineup we’d have expected. Ian Happ did well leading off for a while this year, but hasn’t hit well lately. Hopefully that changes beginning this afternoon.

You’ll note that David Ross has alternated L/R throughout this lineup, an excellent idea.

The Cubs have not yet released their 28-man roster for this series but I would assume it will look very much like the active roster shown here (click on the “Active” tab). The only real question I’d have is whether Brailyn Marquez, activated just for the final game of the regular season, will be on this roster. I’d guess that since it’s only a three-game series, the Cubs might go with 13 pitchers and 15 position players to give themselves more flexibility.

As always, we await developments.