Chicago Cubs Lineup (5/23/26): PCA Batting Leadoff, Hoerner At Cleanup, Rea Starting

My son has a doubleheader to end the high school season and the Cubs are playing too poorly to merit much of my attention, so this will be light on analysis. With that in mind, I’ll go ahead and predict that some lineup tweaks will produce the offensive outburst we’ve been waiting two weeks to see. Not that it’s really got anything to do with who bats where, just that the timing is such that the Cubs have to play better than they have been.

This team has scored just 33 runs over their 2-10 skid, and 18 of those came in two games against the White Sox. It shouldn’t even be possible for a team with this much talent to be shut out three times in 12 games, or to score two or fewer runs eight times in that same span, yet here we are. The futility was finally enough for Craig Counsell to fall in line with what fans have been begging him to do for days now.

“I think we have to do something different,” Counsell said after the game. “It feels like…confidence is shaken. Maybe a different look in the lineup, or a day off is needed. I think we are at that point, absolutely.“

I’m a fan of Counsell and I think there are some things he does really well, particularly when it comes to knowing his players as people. At the same time, however, he seems to provide far too long a leash to veterans while at the same time giving too little leeway to young players. Moisés Ballesteros was quickly banished to the bench in favor of Michael Conforto, yet Ian Happ has remained in the cleanup spot despite batting .122 with a 43 wRC+ over his last 59 plate appearances.

Happ just looks lost at the plate, as evidenced by a 44.1% strikeout rate in that same period. After doubling in his first at-bat, Happ went down swinging on a total of seven pitches from Houston righty Spencer Arrighetti the next two times up. The second of those was particularly ugly as Happ, who was way out in front of a breaking ball he should have known was coming in an 0-2 count.

“He’s just really caught in between and looks a little bit…looks really caught in between,” Counsell said of Happ in his postgame comments to reporters. “The fastball’s kinda beating him, the breaking ball he’s way out front in. And they’re throwing a lot of strikes and he’s behind in the count kinda constantly.”

There’s something to be said for allowing a player to work through their issues, but there are also times when that work may best be done in an observational capacity. Of course, you can’t just bench the entire starting lineup. While I don’t really believe it matters much who bats where, other than having Nico Hoerner in the leadoff spot and making Michael Busch the cleanup hitter, it’s high time to do something to shake this group out of its funk.

I’m writing this hours before the lineup comes out, so I guess we’ll see just what that means. See below for the order, which includes neither Pedro Ramírez nor Kevin Alcántara. Because why would they want to play young guys who could otherwise be getting reps for Iowa?

On the bump for the Astros is Kai-Wei Teng, a 27-year-old righty from Taiwan about whom I know absolutely nothing. Maybe I just memory-holed it, because I don’t recall ever hearing about this guy even though he’s been in the majors for parts of three seasons. Signed by the Twins out of Taiwan in 2017, he was traded to the Giants in 2019 and debuted with them five years later. After pitching just shy of 41 innings over two innings in a swing role, he was traded to Houston in January.

Teng put up very big strikeout numbers in the minors, but that has not carried over at the highest level. He’s gotten good results this season as a swingman, posting a 2.61 ERA over 16 total appearances with three starts. He worked five innings last week against the Rangers and could go at least that deep if the Cubs again forget how to hit. Given how they’ve been flummoxed by breaking stuff, I might have to consider rethinking my earlier prediction.

That’s because, much like the Brewers in the previous series, Teng is a sweeper specialist. He throws that pitch 36% of the time, and right-handed hitters will see it even more often. His 94 mph bowling ball sinker keeps the ball in the yard, and he should get a little help from the wind this afternoon on that front. The fastball isn’t anything special, but it keeps hitters honest even though it’s been hit pretty hard.

I don’t like this matchup at all, which is precisely why the Cubs will probably do well in this one. We’ll find out at 1:20pm CT on Marquee and The Score.