Brandon Glick

Nothing like Mother's Day morning baseball.

The Cubs are in desperate need of a new ninth-inning man as they try to navigate the downfall of Pressly. View full video

So, Cade Horton is NOT starting tonight. That being said, I'd expect him to get a piggyback appearance, assuming Keller doesn't get annihilated in the first two innings. We shall see.

The Cubs' best pitcher went down with a hamstring injury, but their top prospect is gearing up for his MLB debut in Imanaga's stead. View full video

The best of the East and Central clash tonight.

Image courtesy of Thieres Rabelo The Cubs were one of the best teams in baseball in April, despite losing the first two games of the year against the Dodgers in Tokyo. While their MLB-leading offense had plenty to do with that, their pitching staff also deserves a lot of love for some impressive performances against the hardest schedule in baseball by a significant margin. You won't see any honorable mentions here, nor will you see any members of the team's much-maligned bullpen. There were three starters who carried the heaviest load in March and April, and they are the ones who we'll be shining the spotlight on here. #3: Shota Imanaga March/April Stats: 39.0 IP, 2.77 ERA, 4.88 FIP, 18.9% K-rate, 8.2% BB-rate, .305 wOBA allowed It was just another ho-hum month for the best pitcher on the Cubs. After finishing fifth in Cy Young voting as a "rookie" last year, the 31-year-old Imanaga continued to dominate hitters in the first month of the 2025 season despite drawing the Dodgers (twice), Diamondbacks, Padres (twice), and Rangers. His splitter remains one of the most valuable pitches in baseball, even as his fastball struggles to get by hitters at 91.2 mph. His 4.88 FIP is worrisome, and that can be attributed to his declining fastball and awful ground-ball rate (26.3%). He's always been a fly ball pitcher, which is why he must improve on his strikeout and walk rates (both of which are far worse than 2024) if he hopes to limit the damage in the summer. Still, as the schedule eases up, Imanaga should remain the Cubs' best pitcher (once he recovers from his hamstring injury). #2: Matthew Boyd March/April Stats: 33 1/3 IP, 2.70 ERA, 3.80 FIP, 20.7% K-rate, 9.0% BB-rate, .331 wOBA allowed Another guy who outperformed all of his advanced metrics, Boyd is looking like one of the smartest moves ever made by Jed Hoyer's front office. I'd say he was the signing of the offseason, but that would be a disservice to the GOAT, Carson Kelly. Like Imanaga, Boyd is also working below-average walk, strikeout, and ground-ball rates, but he is proving more adept than ever at limiting hard contact. He sits in the 86th percentile in barrels allowed, and he's not far behind in hard-hit rate and average exit velocity on balls put in play. He made notable changes in his limited time with the Guardians last year, and his fastball, slider, changeup, and curveball are all performing above league-average, according to xwOBA. #1 (March/April Cubs Cy Young): Colin Rea March/April Stats: 18 2/3 IP, 0.96 ERA, 1.53 FIP, 25.0% K-rate, 3.9% BB-rate, .248 wOBA allowed I cannot believe this. I was frustrated with the Colin Rea signing at the time — perhaps irrationally so — mostly because Rea was just another depth option for a team that needed a true No. 1 or No. 2 to pair with Imanaga and Justin Steele. Those feelings were only heightened when Steele went down for the season with an elbow injury. Well, turns out Rea is even better than the guy he's replacing. He was dominant in the season's first month, authoring a comically-low ERA that is actually supported by a laughable FIP. He walked three guys all month. Yes, the sample size is small (covering just three starts and six total appearances), but he's riding a ridiculous seven-pitch mix to befuddling success. What's really fun about his arsenal is that his four-seam fastball comprises over half of the pitches he throws... while his other six offerings sit somewhere between five and ten percent. Who knows how long he can keep the magic going, but he's proving to be another astute signing by Hoyer and company. What do you think about our list? Are there other Cubs pitchers who you feel deserve this honor? Sound off in the comments! View full article

Another Cy Young of yesteryear goes against the Cubs today. For what it's worth, both Kyle Tucker (1.555 OPS in nine at-bats) and Justin Turner (.895 OPS in 43 at-bats) have crushed Ray in their careers. Also, can we just fire the bullpen into the sun?

Crazy times when you'd rather have Colin Rea on the mound than Justin Verlander...

Cinco de Mayo. Baseball. Matthew Boyd. Happy Monday, everyone.

Should be one heck of a pitching matchup in the series finale.

Bryan LaHair spent three seasons in Major League Baseball and 14 years in the professional ranks, including two seasons with the Chicago Cubs. I'm pretty sure most of us around here remember LaHair, who famously won the first base job over Anthony Rizzo at the start of the 2012 season. We'll dig into that campaign shortly, but first a quick recap of how we got to that point. LaHair was drafted in the 39th round of the 2002 MLB Draft by the Seattle Mariners out of Saint Petersburg College. From there, he gradually climbed the minor league ranks, first making it to Triple-A in 2006. That's where he would spend the better part of the next six(!) seasons, only getting brief stops at the big league level in 2008 (with the Mariners) and 2011 (with the Cubs). At the conclusion of the 2009 season, LaHair chose not to re-sign in Seattle, recognizing better opportunities surely awaited him elsewhere. He signed a minor league deal with the Cubs in January 2010, though he remained stuck in Triple-A for most of the next two years, winning the Pacific Coast League Most Valuable Player Award and Joe Bauman Home Run Award in 2011. He finally got the call to Chicago when rosters expanded in September, garnering 69 plate appearances and slashing .288/.377/.508 in his cup of coffee. Thus, we arrive at 2012. At that point, LaHair was practically the poster child for the "Quadruple-A" player, as someone who routinely crushed Triple-A pitching but couldn't get over the big league hump. However, under pressure from new President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein, manager Dale Sveum named LaHair the starting first baseman out of spring training, and he rewarded the team with an All-Star campaign... technically. Look, LaHair was good in 2012. In fact, in the first half of the season, he slashed .286/.364/.519 with 14 home runs (and 30 RBIs, lol). That's really solid production, especially when you consider that every other first baseman in the National League not named Joey Votto was hurt at the time (David Freese had to play first base in the All-Star Game that year because of how thin the depth was). But, in hindsight, he did not deserve to be an All-Star. He wasn't even the Cubs' "mandatory" selection, since Starlin Castro was named to his second consecutive consecutive Midsummer Classic that year. The Cubs were 33-52 at the break and had a literal 0% chance of making the playoffs at that point. Did they deserve two All-Star representatives? Probably not, but the fact that LaHair's career all but ended afterward at least makes him one of the coolest stories of an otherwise forgettable season in Cubs lore. In the second half of that season, LaHair hit just .202/.269/.303 with two homers, eventually losing his job to Anthony Rizzo and getting banished to right field. In what would end up being his final big league at-bat, LaHair hit a walk-off single against the Houston Astros in the final game of the 2012 season. LaHair kept playing after that, including stints in NPB, MiLB, and various independent leagues, but he never made it back to the bigs. He retired in 2018 and is now a coach in the minor leagues. View full player

Is it just me, or does Jameson only start on the road this year? I feel like he's literally never pitching in Wrigley. Oh, and we face Quintana tonight. That's fun.

It's those pesky Brewers again, though they actually haven't been quite so pesky in 2025, sitting at just 16-16 going into the series. The Cubs could really open up a gap in the division this weekend.

No matter what happens today, the Cubs will end April in first place in the NL Central.

The best lefty in the National League faces Shota Imanaga tonight... no, seriously, Andrew Heaney is on a heater right now. At least the Pirates still can't hit.

The Cubs' other starting catcher is off to a historic start in 2025. Just how good has Carson Kelly been? View full video

Nola's career stats. It's like the 2010-2016 Giants. Just an unexplainable phenomenon.

The Cubs get another Sunday Night Baseball game, this time against the Phillies. And, good news on that front: Aaron Nola is continuing his insane and bizarre even year-odd year oscillation between being a Cy Young contender and being bad. Let's hope he doesn't turn around his 2025 season tonight.

The Cubs' right-hander aggravated his oblique injury and won't return for a while. What does Assad's prolonged absence mean for the rotation? View full video