Jason Heyward leads off in right tonight, followed by Nicholas Castellanos in left and Kris Bryant at third. Anthony Rizzo is at first, Javy Báez is at short, Jonathan Lucroy is catching, Albert Almora Jr. is in center, and Ian Happ is at second. That’s a lot of righty batters, which might not actually be a great idea.
They’ll be squaring off with 36-year-old lefty Jason Vargas for the second time, the first of which came back in June when he was still with the Mets. He went into that game with a 3.74 ERA that seemed like a bit of a fluke due to his suppressed home run numbers and overall mediocre performance in most regards and that’s pretty much still the case now despite a slightly elevated 4.