Chicago Cubs Lineup (5/5/25): Busch Cleanup, Lopez at 3B, Boyd on Bump
The Cubs maintained their three-game cushion in the division thanks to the Reds dropping two straight to the Nationals, which is good given the next six games are against teams with 22-13 records as of Monday afternoon. That starts with three against the Giants, who come to Wrigley winners of three straight behind a decent offense and strong pitching staff.
Matthew Boyd is an excellent option to start on Monday because the Giants carry an 85 wRC+ against lefties, putting them 17th in MLB. They’re batting just .220 with a .654 OPS when facing southpaws, and Boyd has held members of this lineup to a .167 average with a .417 OPS over 18 at-bats. That experience comes against just three players, though, so not much to take away. Boyd has yet to give up more than three earned runs this season and has kept his team in nearly every game, he’ll just need more runs than they mustered yesterday.
The top third of the lineup features the familiar trio of Ian Happ in left, Kyle Tucker in right, and Seiya Suzuki at DH. Michael Busch cleans up at first base, catcher Carson Kelly is batting fifth, and Pete Crow-Armstrong follows in center. Nico Hoerner slides down to seventh with Dansby Swanson batting eighth and Nicky Lopez rounding things out at third.
They’re facing Landen Roupp, who is in his first season as a full-time starter after coming up last year and making four September starts out of 23 total appearances. He pitched very well for the most part, but walks were an issue and had been at Triple-A as well. Roupp has posted massive strikeout numbers in the minors — 250 punches in 172.2 innings — and has K’d 35 batters in 30 frames this year, but he’s also given up 35 hits.
He’s a different pitcher from anyone the Cubs have seen or are likely to see this season, as he throws his sweepy curveball more than any other pitch. It’s actually got the slimmest margin over his running bowling ball of a sinker, and those pitches make up over 82% of his repertoire. Neither of them behave at all like their average counterparts, with so much east-west movement that some of them land off the Baseball Savant movement plot.
That makes Roupp the bizzaro Nick Pivetta, whose extreme north-south movement was no problem in one matchup before vexing the Cubs in the next. If Roupp continues to pitch like he has so far, this should be a good game in terms of racking up hits. His massive reverse splits see right-handed batters posting a .301/.363/.534 slash with all four of the homers he’s allowed. Those dingers have all come on the road as well.
Even with room for positive regression from an unsightly .378 BABIP against, Roupp figures to see a lot of traffic on the bases. The Cubs are probably going to have to play a little station-to-station baseball because, despite those homers, Roupp has been very good at avoiding hard contact. He gets a lot of grounders and will get more than a little chase, so it comes down to being patient and not falling for that slurve.r
First pitch from Wrigley is at 6:40pm CT on Marquee and 670 The Score.
