Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today's games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today's edition is brought to you by David Adler.
What do the 2026 Cubs have in common with the 1927 Yankees and the Big Red Machine? It's a closer comparison than you might think.
Let's start with this: The Cubs are the best hitting team in the big leagues -- by a lot. They're also the best defensive team in the big leagues -- by a lot. So that's it, right? They can just breeze to the World Series?
Oh wait … we're forgetting something. One tiny little thing. The pitching.
OK, it's not so little. It's actually a great big thing. The Cubs' hitting and fielding might be the best in the Majors, but their pitching ranks at the bottom of the league. And that makes them one of the most intriguing playoff contenders this year.
Mike Petriello breaks it all down in great detail, but here's a quick look at what makes the 2026 Cubs such a weirdly unbalanced team:
As of the writing of the piece, Chicago's position players were worth 34.5 Wins Above Replacement, according to FanGraphs … No. 1 in MLB by more than 10 WAR over the Dodgers.
Chicago's pitchers, on the other hand, were only worth 3.6 WAR … dead last in MLB, in stark contrast to fellow playoff contenders like the Phillies, Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees and Brewers, who just so happen to be the five best pitching teams, all in the 20-plus WAR territory.
That's more than a 30-win gap between the Cubs' position players and the Cubs' pitchers. That's huge. It's historically huge.
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There are only a couple of games on tonight, but we want to highlight the White Sox vs. the Pirates (7:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV), if only because electric pitching prospect Hagen Smith is making his first MLB start.
Smith, who was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2024 Draft, has been pitching in relief for his first month in the big leagues. But tonight, with the Sox trying to keep lowering their magic number as they cling to the AL Central lead, they're giving the 23-year-old lefty the start.
It'll probably be closer to an "opener" situation, but Smith is still worth watching:
- He has a 0.56 ERA through his first 10 appearances.
- He has 23 strikeouts in 16 innings -- that's a 12.9 K/9 -- and a 37% strikeout rate.
- He's a big sidearmer -- Smith's 20-degree arm angle is one of the lowest among lefties.
- His slider is a wipeout pitch -- it drops five inches more than an average slider and has racked up 13 K's in 28 plate appearances while generating a 43% swing-and-miss rate.
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FROM JOURNEYMAN TO TOP-10 HITTER |
The best hitter on the best team in baseball is … who??
The seventh-best hitter in the Major Leagues is … who???
If you already knew the answer to this was Jake Bauers, nice job. You know ball.
But it's still pretty crazy. First of all, it's already a surprise that the No. 1 bat for the 91-win Brewers isn't Jackson Chourio or Brice Turang or William Contreras or Christian Yelich.
And looking at how Bauers ranks across the whole league is even crazier.
The MLB OPS leaderboard goes: Yordan Alvarez, Pete Crow-Armstrong, James Wood, Shohei Ohtani, Willson Contreras, Junior Caminero -- all stars -- and then Bauers at .885, just ahead of Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Elly De La Cruz.
Bauers was a journeyman before this -- basically, until this year. He bounced from the Rays to the Guardians to the Mariners to the Yankees to the Brewers, and he wasn't nearly this good in Milwaukee at first. Now all of a sudden he's a top-10 hitter in the game? How'd that happen?
Jared Greenspan investigates the sudden breakout of Bauers. He finds a bunch of possible factors, including:
- Bauers has great bat speed.
- He's very patient, like most of the Brewers.
- Unlike most of the Brewers, he pulls the ball in the air for power.
- He handles high pitches extremely well.
- He tweaked his batting stance.
Somewhere in there is Bauers' secret sauce.
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FROM RULE 5 LONG SHOT TO A PLAYOFF RACE |
For our next feel-good breakout story of the day, we go to Toronto -- where a Rule 5 long shot just might help save the Blue Jays' season.
The Jays are now only a game out of a Wild Card spot, and one key cog has been rookie reliever Spencer Miles.
Considering this Blue Jays team was a game away from winning the World Series last season, Miles is the last guy you'd expect to be pitching key innings for them down the stretch in 2026.
The 25-year-old was a Rule 5 Draft pick by Toronto, and around this time last year, he was just dreaming he might make it to the big leagues at some point this season.
Now he hasn't just made it -- he's become a jack-of-all-trades for the Jays as they've fought their way back into the playoff race. Miles has a 2.77 ERA in 45 appearances as a rookie.
"It's kind of crazy, especially your first year, you know?" Miles told our Theo DeRosa, who brings you the story of the young pitcher's wild ride.
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TRIBUTES MARK 9/11 ANNIVERSARY |
MLB is commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow with a series of tributes around the league -- with the two New York teams front and center.
This week, the Yankees visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Lower Manhattan. The Mets -- including 2001 team members John Franco, Todd Zeile, Al Leiter and Robin Ventura, and longtime captain David Wright -- honored New York's heroes with a special visit to the FDNY firefighters of Ladder 25.
For tomorrow's games, all players, managers, coaches and umpires will wear special caps with a "We Shall Never Forget" side patch.
And as the Yankees and Mets begin the Subway Series, both teams will wear first responder caps with team logos during their Subway Series game at Yankee Stadium.
The "When America Took the Field" documentary, which centers on baseball's role in helping the nation heal during the aftermath of 9/11, will also premiere tonight on MLB Network at 10 p.m. ET before re-airing throughout the rest of the week.
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