Jason Heyward leads off in center, the no-longer-drowning Nicholas Castellanos plays right, Kris Bryant is at third, and Anthony Rizzo is at first. Then it’s Javy Báez at short, Kyle Schwarber in left, Jonathan Lucroy behind the plate, and Tony Kemp at second.
Those hitters’ eyes will be anything but little when they face Tyler Beede tonight. The 26-year-old righty has given up 17 homers in just 82.2 innings and his 5.77 ERA doesn’t appear to be a fluke, so the Cubs should be able to tee off. And after generally failing to do much against a string of soft-tossers, facing a guy with a touch more velo is a good thing.