Chicago Cubs Lineup (7/8/26): Rea Facing Kremer in Charm City

It’s always a good thing to start a series with a win, particularly coming off a rough weekend. Though it wasn’t a very exciting game, those are exactly the ones the Cubs need to be better at winning. They’ve proven they can put up big crooked numbers or battle their way to a walk-off or 10, but there are times when it feels as though they can’t just punch the clock and stack pedestrian Ws.

Any kind of win they can get is important right now, as Milwaukee just keeps beating St. Louis in a battle of teams closest to the Cubs in the division standings. By virtue of winning on Monday when the Cubs were off and then sweeping a doubleheader on Tuesday, the Brewers have opened up a seven-game lead. The only thing keeping me from rooting for Team Meteor is knowing that the Cards have now fallen 3.5 games behind the Cubs, which is good for the Wild Card.

Colin Rea has been excellent since I damned him with faint praise a couple weeks ago, allowing just three total runs across 15.1 innings in three starts. Those all came against decent teams, so anything resembling a similar effort should be more than viable in this one. That said, this Baltimore team still has some pretty big names in the lineup.

So do the Cubs, of course, with Pete Crow-Armstrong in center, Alex Bregman at third, and Michael Busch at first. Seiya Suzuki is the DH tonight, Ian Happ is in left, Nico Hoerner is at second, and Michael Conforto is the right fielder. Carson Kelly does the catching and Dansby Swanson plays short.

They’re facing righty Dean Kremer, no relation to former Lee High School ace Mitch Kramer, even though both have recognizable flow. Speaking of flow, has anyone else heard Frankie Pulitzer’s hip-hop debut alongside Czarface? I’d encourage you to check it out, and try to avoid finding out who Pulitzer really is before you listen.

Kremer might have nothing to do with a character from Dazed and Confused, but he’s straight out of Stockton like the Diaz brothers of UFC fame or improbable perfect-game tosser Dallas Braden. After wildly inconsistent performance early in his MLB career, Kremer settled in as a really nice mid-rotation starter…when healthy. An oblique strain cost him about two months in 2022, then a right triceps strain cost him roughly six weeks in ’24.

He suffered a quad strain in mid-April of this season that put him on the 60-day IL until a week ago, so this is just his fourth start of the season. If we chose to set aside the small sample, this would look like his best season yet. Well, other than giving up five homers in just 17 innings. Kremer is striking out more batters and walking fewer, so those homers haven’t really hurt.

Consider that he gave up three dingers in his season debut, yet only allowed two earned runs. That’s due in part to the subpar defense playing behind him, and it may also be a sign that a little regression to the mean is on the way. Opposing hitters have just a .189 BABIP against him, which is nearly 100 points below his career average and lower than all but 20 of the 515 MLB pitchers who’ve logged at least 10 innings this season.

Nothing jumps off the page immediately about Kremer’s stuff, which profiles like pretty much any No. 3 or 4 guy from the last several years. What does stand out when you look a little deeper is that he throws his 82.5 mph splitter more than any other starter, going to it over 39% of the time so far. He only started throwing the pitch two years ago, but now it’s his primary offering by a wide margin.

Unlike most of its kind, however, he throws it up in the zone with quite a bit less depth. Kremer’s splitter has nearly 6 inches less vertical drop than average, but it gets a little more arm-side run to make it play a lot like his 92 mph sinker. While he doesn’t necessarily tunnel those two, it’s a good visual when thinking about how he likes to work. Kremer will really lean on that splitter to left-handed hitters, throwing it 46% of the time so far.

He’ll locate his 93 mph fastball up in the zone, then comes the sinker that usually lands middle-in to righties, and a big curve at 77 mph. His cutter and slider are both very effective pitches, but he really only throws them to righties. That’s why his splits are so unsustainably broad coming into tonight’s game, with right-handed hitters slashing .083/.154/.333 in just 13 plate appearances. Kremer has traditionally had very even splits, so expect things to balance out a bit over time.

That could start tonight, especially if Bregman continues to climb his way back to respectability at the plate. The third baseman has not hit Kremer well in the past, however, with just two singles in 14 at-bats. Whether it’s a matter of jumping on the starter or simply waiting him out for a few innings, the Cubs need to find a way to win this one and keep the good vibes rolling into Cincy later in the week.

First is scheduled for 5:35pm CT on Marquee and The Score.