World Champion Chicago Cubs Announce Playoff Rotation

steemsports (80)in #steemsports • 7 years ago

SteemSports Presenter/Editor: Scott Frank,@scottybuckets

The World Champion Chicago Cubs will start their quest to win back to back World Series on Friday. They will face an extremely tough team in the Washington Nationals. One of the Cubs strengths last year during their historic run was their pitching staff. Their starting pitching was the best in the MLB. But this year they have struggled a bit. In fact, there was so much concern that they made a big trade during the All-Star Break in July when they picked up left handed starter Jose Quintana from the cross town rival, the Chicago White Sox.

Today the Cubs manager, Joe Maddon, announced his starting pitching rotation for their series against the Nationals. Kyle Hendricks will get the ball first in the opening game of the National League Division Series. Hendricks lead the starters with a 3.03 ERA. He did miss part of the season with an injury and went 7-5. But he is back to 100% healthy and ready to take the mound on Friday.

Jon Lester will get the the ball for game 2. The left handed pitcher was unhittable last year. But this year hasn't gone so smoothly. Lester’s ERA jumped up to 4.33 as he went 13-8. Lester did lead the starting pitchers on the Cubs in strikeouts with 190. He is a big game pitcher with big time talent and is never one to shy away from the pressure. His velocity has been down though the last few starts and that is a concern. Hopefully, since he is well rested, he can get that speed back on his fastball.

Another left handed pitcher will get the game 3 start. Jose Quintana will get his first taste of what postseason baseball is like at Wrigley Field. The first two games of the series are in Washington, but the Cubs return home for games 3 and 4. Quintana will be welcomed by an extremely excited and loud crowd and his adrenaline will be pumping. Quintana had 14 starts with the Cubs in the second half of the season and went 7-3 with an ERA of 3.74. Will he be able to handle the pressure of game 3?

If this best of 5 game series hits a 4th game, then the Cubs will hand the ball to Jake Arrieta. The bearded ace will have a ton of pressure on him and will be ready for the task at hand. Arrieta went 14-10 with an ERA of 3.53. He too is well rested and chomping at the bit to get his chance to pitch. Game 4 will also be at Wrigley Field and he will feed off of the crowd.

The Cubs rotation will be tested by a very talented Nationals team. Will they rise to the occasion? I think so. We will start to find out on Friday. Thank you for following @steemsports and you can find me @scottybuckets Cheers!