Chicago Cubs Lineup (8/15/26): Boyd Bump Day, Swanson Rests
The Cubs flipped the script with a shutout of their own in Clay Holmes’ home debut yesterday afternoon. The grounder specialist dominated the Cardinals over nearly seven innings, allowing just one hit and one walk. The Brewers lost last night, so this is another chance to shrink the gap further.
Matthew Boyd has been money for the most part, and he responded nicely to a hiccup against the Dodgers by tossing seven innings of two-run ball in KC. And that hiccup wasn’t even bad, as he still picked up the win despite allowing five runs over 6.2 innings. Though he’s not yet recorded an out in the 8th inning — which is true for all Cubs starters — Boyd has retired at least 20 batters in each of his last four starts.
Having that kind of consistency is big for both the lineup and the bullpen, and the hitters likewise know they don’t have to carry the load when Boyd is on the bump. In the rare instances when they do, like that Dodgers game, the bats are more than up to the task.
Pete Crow-Armstrong is in center, Seiya Suzuki is in right, Michael Busch is at first, and Alex Bregman mans the hot corner. Ian Happ is in left, Nico Hoerner slides to short, and Pedro Ramírez plays second. Michael Conforto is the DH and Miguel Amaya does the catching.
They’re up against 26-year-old Michael McGreevy, whose first and only start against the Cubs this season went very poorly. It was easily his worst start of the year, as he gave up seven earned runs on eight hits and was unable to finish the second inning. Even if they don’t quite post those same results this afternoon, McGreevy is the kind of pitcher the Cubs should be salivating over.
This guy is a throwback who sits around 92 with his fastball and lives in the zone with a repertoire meant to get outs on the ground. He’s got seven different pitches that he’ll deploy in vastly different manners based on who’s at the plate. Left-handed hitters see mainly four-seam (30%), change (25%), cutter (17%), and curve (15%); right-handed hitters get sinker (38%), sweeper (28%), four-seam (16%), and change (9%). McGreevy also has a slider, and you can sort of fill in the blanks with his other secondaries if you’re worried about the four I listed for each side not adding up to 100.
His mild platoon splits come mainly from an interesting phenomenon that sees him being much better against righties on the road. That .224/.256/.412 slash line is much worse than any other split, which is odd. Not that it should matter against a team that boasts a combined 1.006 OPS across 68 total at-bats against McGreevy.
This lineup should be able to make plenty of hard contact tonight, so it’ll be a matter of getting some balls in the air and executing on the bases. McGreevy is like a poor man’s Kyle Hendricks in that he’s able to shove without looking like he’s doing so. The only way this goes in the Cards’ favor is if the Cubs mail it in.
First pitch is at 1:20pm CT on Marquee and The Score.
