MLB Odds, Pick & Predictions: Milwaukee Brewers vs. Chicago Cubs (Sunday, July 26)

Brewers vs. Cubs Odds, Pick & Prediction

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The Brewers evened up the series Saturday after coming out the gates firing offensively. Milwaukee knocked Yu Darvish out of the game after four innings and continued to pile on the Chicago Cubs bullpen. Sunday's rubber match will be crucial for either team to keep pace in an extremely competitive National League Central Division.

Brewers

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

The Brewers bounced back after being shut out by Kyle Hendricks to open up the series, by putting eight on Yu Darvish and Cubs bullpen.

The Brewers had some key departures over the offseason with Yasmani Grandal, Jesus Aguilar and Mike Moustakas all leaving via free agency.

That’s a decent chunk of their 2019 lineup, so they’ll need Justin Smoak and Avisail Garcia to pick up the production and provide support behind Yelich, who rates out as the second-best hitter in my model.

Brewers Probable Starter

Freddy Peralta, RHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (Via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Freddy Peralta is mainly a fastball pitcher, throwing it 77.7% of the time in 2019. His fastball has some gas, topping out around 98 mph. Freddy's stats on his fastball wasn't great in 2019, allowing a .351 wOBA against. He also has real nice put a way curveball as well, that has some sick late breaking action on it. If he can get his fastball under control and utilize his curveball more, he could be the Brewers ace of the future.

Cubs

Projected Lineup (via Fantasy Labs)

The Cubs' offense came out the gates a little slow, only scoring two runs on Friday, night but they bounced back on Saturday scoring three runs on six hits in their 8-3 loss to the Brewers.

The Cubs finished eighth in wOBA, 10th in wRC+ and eighth in OPS (on-base + slugging) in 2019, but even their top-10 offense was a bit of a disappointment. Chicago didn’t do much in the offseason to get better, which could be an issue since the bottom-half of the lineup won’t strike much fear into opposing pitchers.

Cubs Probable Starter

Tyler Chatwood, RHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (Via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Tyler Chatwood is you classic ground ball pitcher. His main pitch is his sinker, which was pretty effective, leading to 51.5% ground ball rate in 2019. However, it's not put away very many hitters as it only produced a 14.7% whiff rate last season. Chatwood went away from his cutter in 2019 and I not sure why.

Last season hitters were only able to produce a .097 batting average off of it and it had a 46.6% whiff rate. The Brewers really struggled against cutters last season, ranking 21st in MLB, so I think Chatwood is going to have to mix in more sliders this season to help offset his sinker.

Bullpens

Both teams had to go to their bullpens early on Saturday. However, none of either their main guys were stretched out over multiple innings, so both bullpens should be fresh. Especially since its only the third game of the season.

Brewers vs. Cubs Projections and Pick

It's going to be hot with the wind blowing 10 mph straight out at Wrigley on Sunday, which will no doubt produce a lot of runs. Based on my projections, I think Chatwood and Cubs are undervalued.

Pick: Cubs -110

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