Chicago Cubs Lineup (4/6/25): Happ Playing 1001st Game, Turner at 1B, Brown on Mound
The Cubs enter Sunday’s series finale winners of five straight after taking two from the previously undefeated Padres. Saturday was an emotional affair all around, starting with Matt Boyd making his first Wrigley start with his late grandfather’s fandom on his mind. Just a half-inning later, Ian Happ offered a tip of the batting helmet in response to a standing ovation to celebrate his 1,000th career game. He then doubled on the first pitch he saw, and later made what might have been the best catch of his career to save extra bases in the top of the 7th.
Matthew Boyd was emotional describing how special it was to pitch at Wrigley Field as a Cub. pic.twitter.com/HPKrqqBxTd
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) April 5, 2025
More on that coming in a separate piece, but suffice to say Happ added some accolades to an underrated career. Heck, there were actually people in our comments yesterday saying his extension was a mistake and that Owen Caissie should be playing left field immediately. Yikes. In any case, let’s get back to the game at hand.
I don’t know what the starting pitcher is now, but he’s Ben Brown. He’s also been a little inconsistent over his first two appearances, the last of which was a start in Sacramento against the A’s. His velocity was down across the board in that one, with the fastball sitting just barely above 95 and both his curve and change down at least 0.9 mph each. That isn’t a big deal until we decide to make it a big deal, Richie, so stop bringing me down with this bulls—.
Sorry, lapsed into Seth Gecko mode there. If you’re lost here, just check out From Dusk Till Dawn later and thank me after. Anywho, it’s promising that Brown threw his changeup five times out of 75 pitches after going to it just once in 65 throws in Japan. My initial thought is that he might need to get a little more depth on it and/or kill just a touch more velo because it’s coming in at a very firm 91.3 mph. Definitely something to watch for in this one.
Getting a strong start out of Brown would be big, but this lineup has shown the ability to win in a variety of ways so far. The most notable aspect of the offense in the early going has been its patience, which is reminiscent — cover your eyes and ears if you’re prone to an inability to understand context or nuance — of the 2016 squad. With eight free passes drawn yesterday, the Cubs lead MLB with a 12.7% walk rate (tied with Seattle) and 58 total walks (16 more than Seattle and Arizona). That latter mark is impressive even with two more games played than those teams.
The Cubs are also third in homers (16), second in runs scored, sixth in OBP (.349), eighth in slugging (.433), and ninth in ISO (.183) and strikeout rate (20.1%). They’re getting contributions from just about everyone on the roster, whether it’s a timely hit, a walk, or heads-up baserunning. This is a team that will need to do all the little things right in order to reach its goals, and that’s what we’re seeing so far.
Happ is leading off once again in left, Seiya Suzuki is the DH, Kyle Tucker is in right, and Justin Turner handles first due to the matchup. Dansby Swanson has displayed some serious power of late and he’s at short, followed by Nico Hoerner at second and Pete Crow-Armstrong in center. Matt Shaw is at third and Carson Kelly gets another day behind the plate after a big game yesterday.
Opposing them for the Padres is 32-year-old lefty Kyle Hart, who I know next to nothing about other than the fact that he was at Indiana University with Kyle Schwarber and Scott Effross on the team that made it to the 2013 College World Series. Coincidentally, my son’s pitching coach is also a lefty from IU who was drafted by the Nationals two years earlier. Part of the reason Hart remains somewhat unknown is that his only MLB experience prior to this year came in 2020, when he logged 11 innings with the Red Sox.
Drafted by Boston in the 19th round back in 2016, Hart worked his way up and was at the team’s alternate site for most of the truncated COVID season. He was later outrighted and spent three seasons bouncing around between organizations, never getting past Triple-A again. That led to a deal with the KBO’s NC Dinos, for whom he went 13-3 with a 2.69 ERA while setting the league’s single-season strikeout record with 182 and earning their equivalent of the Cy Young in the ’24 season.
The Padres then signed him to a one-year, $1.5 million deal that includes a $5 million club option for next year. It’s hard to tell what he’s going to bring today, but this guy looks like the very definition of a crafty lefty. He also gives a very different look from Saturday starter Nick Pivetta, an over-the-top righty with big north-south movement. Hart is a low 3/4 thrower whose stuff all works along the horizontal plane, and he’s also super backwards as far as his mix.
That is subject to change, of course, as we’re only working with five innings’ worth of data. Based on his lone previous start in the last five years, Hart will throw his sweeper and change more than anything else. The latter will only rarely be thrown to lefties, so righties should be ready for a healthy dose of offspeed. Hart’s 92 mph sinker gets quite a bit more ride than average, which indicates that it’s more of a running two-seam pitch.
His slider likewise has far less depth than most, to a pretty startling degree. It’s almost like a deathball curve in that it doesn’t perform as expected, though he throws it at a very firm 86.4 mph. Perhaps most notable here is that Hart’s four-seam is thrown more than a full tick slower than his sinker, which is something I don’t think I’ve seen in any previous breakdowns.
While it wasn’t a hallmark of his previous performances, Hart has become quite the strike-thrower since heading to South Korea. That could work in the Cubs’ favor, as the Guardians tagged him for a pair of homers out of five hits allowed last week. Then again, there was very little damage done because Hart only walked one batter and both homers were solo shots. Let’s see how the patient plate approach noted earlier plays out against the lefty’s repertoire.
First pitch is at 1:20pm CT, the third game in a row we’ve gotten a mercifully early start. It’s also the first time the Cubs have had the same start time in more than two straight games, and those were back in Tokyo before dawn in the US. Joy, consistency be thy name. You can catch the game on Marquee — which Crane Kenney confirmed does not yet have a new agreement with Comcast and is operating on an interim pact — or 670 The Score.
