Chicago Cubs Lineup (9/25/25): Busch Leads Off, Mo Baller Bats Cleanup, Imanaga Starting

Talk about a reversal of fortunes from one game to the next. The Cubs lost Tuesday’s opener in frustrating fashion, plus they saw Cade Horton exit early while the Padres won to move within a game and a half of the top Wild Card spot. But just 24 hours later, the Cubs won behind a resurgent Matthew Boyd while the Padres lost. The magic number to clinch home-field advantage now stands at two.

I was initially thinking it was three, which also happens to be the number of earned runs Shota Imanaga has allowed in each of his last five starts. His strikeouts are down and he’s allowed at least one homer in each of his last eight outings, so he really needs to get something figured out tonight. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings this season, only JP Sears (2.01) and Bailey Ober (1.92) have worse HR/9 marks than the 1.88 Imanaga has posted. That’s up to 2.28 in the second half, for what it’s worth.

As we saw last night with Boyd, it can really help when the offense applies pressure right out of the gate. That starts with Michael Busch at first, Nico Hoerner at second, and Ian Happ in left. Moises Ballesteros has made a strong case for a playoff roster spot regardless of Kyle Tucker‘s health, and he’s at DH tonight. Seiya Suzuki takes right, Carson Kelly is behind the plate, Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center, and Dansby Swanson handles short. Matt Shaw bats ninth at third.

They’re facing a rookie for the second night in a row, but this one hasn’t struggled nearly as much in the early going as Jonah Tong. In the first seven starts of his career, Nolan McLean has a 1.27 ERA by allowing no more than two earned runs in a game. He’s given up one or none five times and has only served up one homer despite 29 total hits over 42.2 innings. McLean has also walked at least two batters in five of his starts, so it’s not as though he’s been really clean out there.

No relation to American Pie singer Don McLean, nor to former UCLA hoopster Don MacLean, the 24-year-old righty does have ties to a sports/pop culture icon. Former Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy, he of the heinous mullet and “I’m a man, I’m 40!” rant, was recently fired after 21 seasons helming the Cowboys. McLean played QB in high school and was recruited by OSU as a two-sport athlete, though he was only on the football team for a redshirt freshman year before devoting his time to baseball.

He was also a two-way player on the diamond, playing mostly corners infield, outfield, and DH in addition to pitching. Though he only started three games on the mound out of 39 total appearances in college, the Mets have used him primarily as a starter since selecting him in the third round of the 2023 draft. They also apparently kept him in the dryer a little too long, as he is now listed at 6-foot-2 after being two inches taller in college. His weight has remained the same, in case you were concerned about that.

McLean moved quickly through the minors on the strength of a six-pitch mix highlighted by a bowling ball 95 mph sinker that cleans up most of his mistakes. Always a strong groundball pitcher, his 63.1% rate at the highest level is better than he’s ever had in the minors. He also throws an 85 mph sweeper and an 80 mph slurve that gets way more horizontal break than most. The sinker and sweeper see pretty even usage to all hitters, but the curve is a little more of a lefty weapon.

The four-seam is thrown a tick harder than the sinker and is also an equal-opportunity pitch, though it tends to hang middle-middle for blah results. While the sinker is his most valuable pitch from a volume perspective, his diving 87 mph changeup is better from a relative standpoint. It gets a ton of depth and is throwing mainly to lefties, which is why McLean has mild reverse splits so far.

Those splits are very pronounced on the road, however, where he’s held left-handed hitters to a .139/.244/.139 slash line. We’re only talking about 41 batters, but that’s still quite a line. It’s also indicative of a guy who has trouble commanding the zone, and we see that borne out in heat maps that look like Rorschach tests. This should be the Cubs’ toughest challenge of the series on paper, so they need to execute their gameplan.

That should include forcing McLean to find the zone and visualizing swinging under the ball, as just about everything he throws has more sink than usual. Even though he has robust whiff and strikeout numbers, McLean doesn’t get a lot of chase. If the Cubs can wait him out a bit and get him to throw a few cookies, they could leverage his high-ish walk rate to manufacture a few runs.

First pitch is at 6:40pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.

Sho Time at the Friendly Confines tonight.

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— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 25, 2025