Chicago Cubs Lineup (6/1/25): PCA Batting Cleanup, McGuire Catching, Taillon Starting

The Cubs closed May on a high note, using a pair of late runs to beat the Reds in a game that was starved for offense. Cincy collected only one hit against a quartet of Cubs relievers as Drew Pomeranz opened for Ben Brown, who then gave way to Brad Keller and Daniel Palencia. It was the best performance of the season for Brown, and maybe the best of his brief MLB career, which was great to see after two stinkers previously.

With their flukey surge at the end, the Cubs have now outscored their opponents 60-8 from the 6th inning on over their last 15 games. That comes courtesy of Marquee’s Christopher Kamka, who is a font of great information. A lot of the tallies in that lopsided scoring came against the Reds last weekend, but it sure would be nice to get a good old-fashioned blowout.

Jameson Taillon has pitched quite well over his last two starts, allowing just one run in each and securing half of his four wins on the season. There’s still some concern over the fact that both runs came on solo homers, continuing the righty’s serious bugaboo this season. His 15 home runs allowed put him second overall behind Tampa’s Zack Littell (16), but Taillon’s 2.14 HR/9 mark is well ahead of Littell (1.93) and the rest of MLB’s qualified pitchers.

Having a slight breeze blowing in from right/right-center may help a little bit, but it’s not going to be enough to knock down serious contact. As we’ve noted more than once here, Taillon could probably help himself out by throwing fewer strikes. There’s a fine line between working the corners and nibbling, so he just needs to figure out how to walk it.

It’d be great if Ian Happ could get back to his career-long dominance of the Reds, something we saw yesterday from his two doubles. He’s in left with Kyle Tucker in right, Seiya Suzuki DH’ing, and Pete Crow-Armstrong in center. Speaking of late-inning surges, how about that diving catch by PCA in the 9th inning? It had a catch probability of only 10%, yet he still made it look only slightly tougher than routine.

Dansby Swanson is at short, Michael Busch finally gets back into the lineup at first, Nico Hoerner is at second, and Matt Shaw plays third. Catcher Reese McGuire serves as the caboose.

They’re facing Nick Martinez — Nick, Nick Martinez — a 34-year-old righty who is in his second season with the Reds and is now starting full-time after working as a swingman last season. I honestly would not have guessed Martinez had been in the league that long, though he did spend 2018-21 in Japan. The only thing that really stands out to me about him, as 2 Live Crew aficionados may have already clocked, is that his name reminds me of a particularly raunchy ditty from their 1990 Banned in the U.S.A. album.

Interestingly enough, Luke Campbell was sitting with Marlins Man just a few rows in front of me and my son at Wrigley for the Ryne Sandberg statue game. It remains a great regret of mine that I didn’t go up to greet him between innings, but he was on his phone quite a bit, and there were others milling around him. I just wanted to ask whether it was true that he actually had random dudes with the last names of Martinez and Navarro sign affidavits attesting to the fact that the song in question was about them.

That’s important because said song talked about some very unsavory things regarding people who might otherwise have been former Florida governor Bob Martinez, his wife, and former Broward County sheriff Nick Navarro. I’ll not link it here, but you can find it pretty easily if you so choose. Just don’t check Spotify, as I believe they may have removed it from their platform, or at least it’s missing from the streaming of the album itself.

Where were we, again? Ah yes, the other Martinez. The Reds righty had what was easily the best season of his career in 2023 and he’s on pace to do even better this year. That’s not a function of a 93 mph fastball thrown with 11th-percentile extension, though his cut/ride four-seam has been good. The real key for Martinez is the cutty 79 mph changeup he throws about 20% of the time to batters on both sides of the plate. His sinker and slider are thrown far more often to right-handers, and the four-seam more to lefties.

The change will also see a higher percentage of usage against left-handed hitters, but he isn’t nearly as exclusive with it as we’ve seen from other recent opponents. Though he’s in the lower third of the league in terms of strikeouts and chase, Martinez succeeds by being among the best when it comes to limiting walks and hard contact. He’s been able to work the zone to get the contact he wants on pitchers’ pitches, and he doesn’t get himself in trouble with free baserunners.

He did have a little more trouble with walks early in the season, but he’s issued only two free passes over his last five starts and has gone at least six innings over his last six. This is a game in which plate approach will be very important, as the Cubs are going to have to be very particular when it comes to looking for certain pitches and/or spots.

Despite the low walk rate, Martinez is just 31st out of 79 qualified pitchers when it comes to zone percentage (53.8%). He is also ranked 69th with a 59% first-pitch-strike rate, which should indicate that he has to work from behind more than most of his peers. But therein lies his advantage, as he gets hitters feeling confident and ready to swing at all the nibblers he unleashes from there.

His platoon splits are pretty even and Cubs hitters have done very little against him in the past, so this could be another sluggish one. Or hey, maybe it’ll just go completely sideways and we’ll see a slugfest. First pitch is at 1:20pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.

The final stretch.

Watch the game live on the Marquee Sports Network app. pic.twitter.com/KdKMAeaY5k

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 1, 2025