Advance and Survive: Your In-Depth Guide to Padres-Cubs Through an Advance Scouting Lens

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

For your average, everyday, regular-season series, it would be borderline psychotic to spend hours putting together a comprehensive scouting report on the opposing team. That's what teams do, of course, because it's the only way to be ready to play the increasingly complex modern game. Fans, however, have to be a bit more cavalier. Every game is just one of 162. Even a three-game weekday series is just under 2% of a full season.

All that's out the window now. This three-game weekday series might not even go as long as three games, if one team shows up materially more prepared than the other—and for the loser, it will be 100% of the rest of their season. Thus, it's time to spend your morning commute (or coffee break, or suspiciously long on-the-clock dump) tackling some questions you'd barely graze, if this were the regular season.

The Padres and the Cubs play two afternoon games this week, at Wrigley Field. What Game 3 of that set might look like, we can't afford to worry about yet. Right now, all that matters is how the first two will go. They're each scheduled for a 2:08 PM CT first pitch, and will be nationally televised. The pitching matchups for each are set, and they're intriguingly similar. It'll be almost (but very definitely not exactly) like playing the same game twice. If one team wins that game both times, the other's season will crash to an end. These are two very good teams, only lightly diminished by injuries and the grind of the long season. How do they match up?

Essential Details
Game 1:

• Padres Starter: RHP Nick PIvetta - 31 starts, 181 2/3 innings, 2.92 ERA, 26.4% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate, 3.1% home-run rate, 33% ground-ball rate, 93 DRA-
• Cubs Starter: LHP Matthew Boyd - 31 starts, 179 2/3 innings, 3.21 ERA, 21.4% strikeout rate, 5.8% walk rate, 2.6% home-run rate, 37% ground-ball rate, 96 DRA-
• Key Personnel Consideration: Elias Díaz is Pivetta's personal catcher, and is likely to play Game 1.
• Current weather forecast: Sunny, 77°, winds expected to blow in at 8-15 MPH

Game 2:

• Padres Starter: RHP Dylan Cease - 32 GS, 168 IP, 4.55 ERA, 29.8% K, 9.8% BB, 2.9% HR, 36.6% GB, 86 DRA-
• Cubs Starter: LHP Shota Imanaga - 25 GS, 144 2/3 IP, 3.73 ERA, 20.6% K, 4.6% BB, 5.5% HR, 29.1% GB. 114 DRA-
• Key Personnel Consideration: In a series full of fly-ball pitchers, Imanaga achieves an extreme even in that crowd. The Cubs need to field their best defensive outfield in this game.
• Current weather forecast: Overcast, 74°, winds expected to blow in at 8-15 MPH

Projected Lineups
Because of the similarities in profile (handedness for each pair, pitch mix for Boyd and Imanaga, arm slot for Pivetta and Cease), the optimal lineups for these teams will be nearly identical for the two games. Interestingly, neither lineup will feel especially familiar, because each team has just had injuries shake up their daily corps—and each is facing a set of pitchers that changes what they do a little bit, relative to their default setting.

Padres

1. Fernando Tatis Jr. - RF
2. Luis Arraez - DH
3. Manny Machado - 3B
4. Gavin Sheets - LF
5. Xander Bogaerts - SS
6. Jackson Merrill - CF
7. José Iglesias - 2B
8. Ryan O'Hearn - 1B
9. Elias Díaz (G1) / Freddy Fermin (G2) - C

Cubs

1. Michael Busch - 1B
2. Ian Happ - LF
3. Kyle Tucker - DH (G1) / RF (G2)
4. Seiya Suzuki - RF (G1) / DH (G2)
5. Pete Crow-Armstrong - CF
6. Dansby Swanson - SS
7. Nico Hoerner - 2B
8. Carson Kelly - C
9. Matt Shaw - 3B

The Skinny
To topline this thing, you need to know the following:

• The Cubs brought Kyle Tucker back from the injured list this weekend, but only as a designated hitter. It's not clear whether he'll be able to play right field, and while Seiya Suzuki has been better at avoiding the bad read or the clank-and-drop this year, he's much more prone to the disastrous play than is Tucker. That goes extra on a sunny day, forced to play right field. Whether Tucker can play right field might turn out to matter much more than you would guess, even though he himself has been merely passable with the glove.
• Nick Pivetta had a career year, after signing a disappointingly team-friendly contract with San Diego over the winter. He'd never had an ERA under 4.00 before, and this season, he got under 3.00. He fills up the strike zone, and can miss bats with his breaking stuff against hitters of both handednesses.
• Dylan Cease, set to become a free agent this fall, went the opposite way, at least in terms of surface-level numbers. He's better than his ERA reflects, though he's always been somewhat susceptible to this type of season.
• San Diego lost key contributor and right-handed bat Ramón Laureano to a hand injury during the final week, and he'll miss this series. That's a huge blow for the Padres. At the same time, they got Xander Bogaerts back from a prolonged absence just before the season wrapped, which balances things out somewhat. The Cubs can understand that, of course, with Tucker returning to the lineup at the last minute just as they lost would-be playoff starter Cade Horton.
• These teams split the season series, but that doesn't tell the full story. In each of the last two years, the Cubs' most painful loss (arguably) was to San Diego, in April. Last year, they lost 9-8 in a game they led 8-0 into the middle innings. This year, they squandered a 7-3 lead in similar, excruciating slow-motion fashion—this time, at home, where they'll play these very games with everything on the line. That's a part of the Padres' identity. Only Atlanta and the Blue Jays won more game than did San Diego (9) when trailing by multiple runs after four innings this year, so if you get ahead of them, you have to keep your foot on their throat. (The Cubs, because you're wondering, won just four such games this season.)
• San Diego's offense can be dynamic, but they've underachieved. The biggest reason for their comeback ability, arguably, is their remarkable bullpen. With Robert Suarez, Mason Miller and ex-Cub Jeremiah Estrada anchoring a ferocious group, they can shut you down if they get ahead—but they also make it harder to extend a lead, especially in a game that matters enough to justify using their best relievers even while behind.
• Beyond the batter-pitcher matchups we're about to break down at length, the Cubs have two enormous advantages in this series. One is their defense, which has been worth 83 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) this year, second-best in MLB. The Padres come in 14th, at 28 DRS, and even that comes mostly from right field and behind the plate. The Cubs are much better at turning balls in play into outs, and the Padres don't specialize in hitting the long ball, the way they used to. The other major advantage lies in the running game. Fermin can be a deterrent and a runner-killing machine behind the plate, but with Díaz and the sometimes-inattentive Pivetta starting Game 1, the Cubs have a chance to run and create runs via small ball—assuming they can get on base. The Padres will have no such opportunities. Boyd and Imanaga are two of the six pitchers (of 500 qualifiers) who hold runners closest, and each has a good pickoff move to make overeager guessers pay.

The Advance Scout's Handbook
This is the section of this piece to keep open during the games for these two days. We're going to talk about the specific ways individual batters match up with the starters on each team, and talk about how the Cubs need to execute to get the better of matchups that (taken as a whole) do seem to lean in their favor.

The Padres Against Lefties
With Horton off the board, the Cubs will hand the ball to Boyd in Game 1 and to Imanaga in Game 2. That means two straight days with a southpaw on the mound, who brings with them some funk and whose arsenal has as its key components a four-seam fastball, a fading offspeed pitch, a slider and a curve. Each pitcher adds other wrinkles, and their pitch shapes and velocity bands aren't identical, but Boyd and Imanaga are similar enough that we can study the best way for each to attack the Padres' batters, without significantly differentiating them.

Fernando Tatis Jr.: Lefties can get Tatis out with four-seamers up and away. However, if they miss laterally while trying to hit that corner of the zone, they pay a hefty price. Tatis likes the ball up, and wants to turn on it with his fearsome swing. When building a gameplan against a hitter, you have to create some margin for error, so the right way to attack Tatis is to line the bottom of the zone with the fastball, then dip below the zone with the changeup (or, in Imanaga's case, the splitter). Tatis has been worse as a power hitter this year, and lefties have been especially good at stumping him, but he's made up for the loss of punch with much-improved patience. As a result, Imanaga might have to be willing to walk him at times, rather than risk throwing a fastball that catches the wrong pocket of the zone. Boyd, whose changeup stays in the zone much more often and can play off the fastball even when it's landing in close to the same vertical location, has the better answer for what Tatis is doing well in 2025. The key really, truly is to keep the ball down and away; he can't lift the ball when lefties hit their spots right now. Make him beat you with a single and a steal, especially because he's been caught seven times attempting steals this year and the Cubs have pickoff artists on the hill.

Luis Arráez: Much more than most hitters, Arráez adapts his swing plane based on pitch type and location. That's the sign of a hitter who's able to recognize pitches earlier than almost anyone, which is why he's such a contact freak. Stunningly, in over 20 swings, he didn't whiff on a curveball from a lefty even once this year. However, he trades bat speed for all that adaptability, so you really just have to pound him low with the fastball. His swing works neatly out away from him and above the belt, but crowd him or hit the bottom rail of the zone with four-seamers and Arráez often gets himself out. Caleb Thielbar is actually a slightly better matchup for Arráez than are Imanaga or Boyd, because whereas they (and Drew Pomeranz) each lean toward elevating the fastball, Thielbar has the ability to dot the bottom line with his; he throws 17.8% of his fastballs in the lower reaches of the zone. You just have to resist the temptation to try to punch Arráez out. Throwing him a changeup or a curve is creating a threat where none exists. Don't do it.

Manny Machado: It sounds reductive, but so much of getting Machado out as a left-handed hurler comes down to execution. He's the one Padres hitter who has mashed lefties this year, and we might see Mike Shildt put two lefties behind him in the order to punish any attempt by Counsell to bring on a righty reliever to deal with him. Thus, a game could easily come down to whether Boyd or Imanaga (or Thielbar or Pomeranz) can get Machado out in a key spot.

That, in turn, comes down to sequencing and location. Machado uses good anticipation and his plus bat speed to get the barrel to inside fastballs against lefties very well. He slows his bat slightly and tends to clip the ball, leading to line drives to center field rather than long flies to left, but it's a reliable way that he produces hits. To get him out with the heater, you have to elevate. He will whiff up there, especially up and away. Once he reaches a two-strike count, though, Machado makes a major swing adjustment and can line that high heater the other way.

The best plan is to start him with high, teasing heaters, then throw your best breaking ball or changeup to get him out with two strikes. That's the standard formula, but it's comforting to know that it works; not every right-handed batter can be gotten out so simply. Running changeups work better against him than the ones with more of a vertical shape, so Imanaga could do well with a strike-to-ball sweeper. Boyd's change suits Machado's weakness better. Each has the tools to avoid letting him hurt them, though. It's just going to hurt a lot if you miss in the middle of the zone to him.

Gavin Sheets: Lefties can safely start Sheets with a fastball for a strike. He's passive early in counts, with just 10 swings (and two hits, both ground-ball singles) on first-pitch fastballs from lefties this year. He's seen 39 such pitches, so he's willing to take a strike, and even if he swings, you're not in a ton of danger. Thereafter, crowd him with that heater. Sheets has a very flat swing and wants the ball on the outer half; inside heaters from lefties eat him up.

Xander Bogaerts: It's extremely important to pitch Bogaerts backward. He's very dangerous on fastballs from lefties in early and hitter-friendly counts. He's also heavily prone to whiffs on offspeed pitches, though, so as long as you don't leave that pitch on the inner half, it's not terribly hard to get him out. Start Bogaerts with a changeup or splitter away, then finish him with fastballs and be ok with that finish being a lazy fly ball, rather than a strikeout.

Jackson Merrill: The follow-up to Merrill's run at the Rookie of the Year Award last year has been underwhelming. He's a more smooth-edged but less toolsy rendition of Crow-Armstrong. The key, especially as a lefty, is to attack Merrill with high fastballs. Miss low, and you'll pay. Even though his numbers are down and his swing speed looks initially unimpressive, he has a uniquely steep swing that makes him lethal when he draws a bead on a low heater. In that way, he's very much like Crow-Armstrong. Don't try to sneak a first-pitch cookie past him, like you can against Sheets. Be willing to nibble, see if he'll chase, and then let him get himself out on a mishit fly ball when you get the fastball up near the letters.

José Iglesias: This is, perhaps, Shildt's most interesting lineup decision. He almost has to sit Jake Cronenworth; you can't run five lefty hitters out against a pair of lefty starters. Iglesias isn't as dangerous as Cronenworth can be at his best, but he's a tougher out for a lefty than Cronenworth usually is. He's not going to tap the ball on the first pitch. He has zero balls in play on 18 first-pitch offspeed pitches from lefties this year. He also won't swing at the change if the count goes to 3-2; he didn't offer at any of the four he saw. In between, he'll go for a changeup, but the best plan is to start him with a breaking ball, get strike two on the change, and then go up and away with a fastball for the strikeout. That's a common hole in the swings of righty batters facing lefty pitchers, and given Iglesias's swing plane, his lackluster bat speed exacerbates the problem.

Ryan O'Hearn: If Laureano hadn't gotten hurt, O'Hearn might have been the odd man out in the lineup shuffle. All things considered, he'll probably start at least one of the games; he's a terrific defensive first baseman. Against a good lefty, though, he's an easy out. If you can hit your spot on the outer third to him, and you can put any other pitch at all in his head, you can get him out with the fastball. He looks inside for fastballs and lets his bat catch up to anything slow or spinning away from him; he doesn't have the bat speed to cover the outer-half heat with that approach. It's all about making him respect something softer, without actually throwing anything in the zone except the fastball away.

Freddy Fermin: Never, ever play with your food—especially in the playoffs. Fermin has an even worse version of the hole in Iglesias's swing. Aim for the upper and outer quadrant, and take care of business. Hitters will adjust if you go to the well too many times that way, of course, but even a modicum of mixing in other stuff to set it up will make a simple fastball an out pitch to Fermin.

Elias Díaz: Just don't leave the changeup up, and you'll be fine. Días, who was only very briefly anything else, is purely a mistake hitter at this point in his career. He doesn't have much plate discipline or an adaptable swing.

Jake Cronenworth: Unlike almost all his teammates, Cronenworth won't whiff on your lefty fastball. Start him with soft or spin. He tries to get opportunistic early in at-bats, and occasionally, he gets himself out by taking a fastball hack and dribbling a ball somewhere on a slider. Crucially, though, don't double up with the heater deep in a count, when trying to put him away. He's going to hit that hard somewhere.

The Cubs Against High-Slot Righties Who Fill Up the Zone
Nick Pivetta throws a good-not-great fastball, and a host of other stuff—but really, he's two different two-pitch pitchers, with a few decorations attached to each. Against lefty batters, he leans almost exclusively on the fastball and the curve, with just a few cutters and other baubles mixed in. Against righties, he's a four-seamer/sweeper guy, with a few cutters to keep people honest.

It's not hard to identify Pivetta's pitches out of his hand. His curve has that dreaded hump, for lefties. His release angle is different enough to separate the fastball and the sweeper relatively early. You could get yourself a long way down the wrong road, therefore, by assuming that it's easy to lock in on either pitch and tee off. It ain't so.

Pivetta's main offerings diverge so much in terms of velocity and movement that, even though hitters will often spot it fairly soon, they struggle to adjust enough to get the good part (or any part, sometimes) of the bat on the ball. Guys often freeze, even, and take a called strike on a fastball right down the middle, having known it was that pitch in that spot but not having pulled the trigger. He gets you moving and thinking, and then you realize you're so far off your visual target that it's not even worth trying.

Thus, the key to hitting him is anticipation. You have to mentally eliminate one of his two main offerings to hitters in your batter's box, at least once or twice an at-bat, and just commit to attacking the pitch you think you're getting. It's a bit different with Cease, but because his pitch profile (and the over-the-top look he offers from a similarly tall frame) is so akin to Pivetta's, hitters end up solving the same sets of problems.

This is another small advantage for the Cubs in the series. More so than Imanaga and Boyd, Pivetta and Cease almost train hitters to hit the other. The Cubs' batters should feel like they're getting a third and fourth look at Pivetta when they face Cease in Game 2. In fact, that Pivetta essentially ended up in front of Cease in the rotation for a big chunk of the season might be why Cease's numbers don't look good this year.

The lineup I sketched for these games reflects the unique challenge of hitting pitchers like these two, and the way that bends things relative to a standard-issue opponent. By a healthy margin, the best hitter on the team against pitchers who share key traits with Pivetta and Cease this year is Busch, so there was no need to shake up the top spot in the order. However, this type of hurler neutralizes Nico Hoerner in a way almost no other pitcher type in the league can. Thus, I have him slid far down the batting order. Benefiting therefrom is, among others, Dansby Swanson, who took Pivetta himself deep earlier this year and has good overall numbers against pitchers like him.

Ian Happ slots in second, for me, because although he's struggled against pitchers with this general profile, he seems to have really figured out the specific task of hitting Pivetta. He's not good at covering both pitch types he sees from Pivetta; it's not in the nature of his swing. But he's locked in and timed himself for one of the two, and come up with very well-struck hits against Pivetta as recently as April.

Because that appears to be a special case of Happ figuring out a pitcher with a tricky pattern, though, if you want to see him slide down the card for Game 2, you'll get no argument from me. Tucker, for what it's worth, is not especially well-suited to hit this kind of pitcher, and didn't have much success against Pivetta this spring. He did hit the ball hard a few times, but always right at someone or with a bit too much loft. That's the risk for his swing path in the area of the zone where Pivetta lives to lefties. He'll make his Cubs legacy, if at all in the series, when he gets a shot at Mason Miller later in games; that's a better fit for his unique brand of brilliance. Otherwise, he might need to settle for a wrong-way single at a key juncture.

The other player pushed far down the order—further than he's been since mid-August, in fact—is Kelly. That's because he's even worse than Hoerner against pitchers like Pivetta and Cease. Their stuff is just a nightmare fit for his swing path and his patient approach. The Cubs should, in fact, consider pinch-hitting for Kelly with Moisés Ballesteros and then swapping in Reese McGuire if Kelly's spot comes up in a pivotal situation during the series, with Pivetta or Cease on the mound.

A Few Bullpen Thoughts
In a series this short, it's not as important to sweat the possible overexposure of particular pitchers that comes from bringing them into multiple games and giving the same hitters multiple looks at them in a short span. On the other hand, there are no off days in this set, either. Fatigue could come into play for the relievers, as well as for starters. Look for both Counsell and Shildt to shield their high-leverage arms from working back-to-back in Games 1 and 2 if at all possible, because they certainly won't want to have to turn to anyone for a third straight day in Game 3.

Taylor Rogers will probably only appear if the series goes to a Game 3. Unlike Thielbar, he's not a materially better matchup for any of the Padres than Boyd or Imanaga are, so unless one of those two departs very early, Rogers probably won't be called upon., He could, however, easily be a better matchup for someone than Jameson Taillon is, by the fourth inning of a decisive Game 3. It's in that contest that all hands will truly be on deck.

Estrada, though an elite strikeout arm, is too similar to Pivetta and Cease to be a great backup to them. He might be unexpectedly vulnerable to a huge hit late in a game, so don't despair if he comes in to try and protect a thin lead for the visitors.

Machado and Tatis are, obviously, the most important bats to target with the Cubs' late-game trio of right-handed relievers. They're neighbors in the lineup, but it's not necessarily the case that the same righty should face them in any given spot. Andrew Kittredge is the best matchup for both players, so mentally, slide him up the reliever hierarchy in your mind. Brad Keller is a bit better an option against the two than is Daniel Palencia, whose stuff should play well against Arráez and Sheets. 

Benediction
This series is going to be a blast. The Cubs are well-positioned to win it, despite the absence of Horton and the uncertain readiness of Tucker. Hopefully, this exhaustive study will make you feel a bit more aware and a bit less anxious during the action. If both sides play a facsimile of their best game, it's the Cubs' that should win out, and we can have another long conversation like this one this weekend as the team travels to Milwaukee.

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[Bertz]

I know Tatis has really stark reverse platoon splits the last two years, but push comes to shove this is my reaction to seeing them:

I think if the Cubs lose this series it's going to be because Tatis made it rain on Waveland...or hell he has enough raw power maybe Sheffield.

Cease scares me a too.  He's so Jekyll and Hyde when he's on he is ON.  Really interesting point about how having him next to Pivetta might be hurting him.  I guess too he's vulnerable to patient lefties who can handle velo, and we've got several of those.  A bit of a shame Tucker can't play the field yet, because I'd love to sneak Moises into Wednesdays lineup.

I really hope we can take game 1.  Darvish is diminished enough at this stage that this lineup would eat him alive.  So if you get game 1 in the bag it feels a safe bet (as much as anything can be with these sample sizes) that we pull one of the latter two games out.

[Development DL]

What a detailed piece of work . I appreciate all the efforts you put into backing your thesis with data . 
This enhances the fan experience , by eliminating some of the unknown . Fabulous. 

[Victor Reichman]

Outstanding article. Tucker isn't ready IMO yet. As DH, don't yell at me too much, but right now I would go with Moises B. 

I also think Tucker's defense has been adequate, but not outstanding even when he's not bothered by his calf.

[Jason Ross]

4 minutes ago, Victor Reichman said:

Outstanding article. Tucker isn't ready IMO yet. As DH, don't yell at me too much, but right now I would go with Moises B. 

I also think Tucker's defense has been adequate, but not outstanding even when he's not bothered by his calf.

Moises Ballesteros will be an interesting option off the bench, but a good reminder that Mo Baller was a 120 wRC+ hitter in Iowa and Tucker has been 20% better against significantly better pitching. 

Tucker is the right call. Not the rookie. Even if he's a little rusted, he's the right call.