Game Thread #74: Milwaukee Brewers (39-34) @ Chicago Cubs (44-28)

The Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs start a three-game series at Wrigley Field tonight, their second series of the season. The Cubs took two out of three at American Family Field in the beginning of May. On the mound tonight will be Chad Patrick for the Brewers and Ben Brown for the Cubs—check out Harrison’s series preview here. (There are thunderstorms in the forecast both tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully the weather will cooperate.)

The Cubs come in with the second-best record in the National League, one game behind the Mets and a half game in front of the Dodgers. They come in as MLB’s second-highest scoring offense, trailing only those Dodgers in runs scored this season and trailing only the Dodgers, Yankees, and Diamondbacks in team OPS.

If the Brewers are serious about winning the division this season, this would be a great time to get a summer run started. Milwaukee sits second in the NL Central, 5.5 games behind the Cubs, and as good as the Chicago offense has been, that’s how bad the Brewers’ has been. Their .677 team OPS is 25th in the league, though they have managed the 12th-highest run-scoring total, helped in part by their third-place standing in stolen bases (behind only the Cubs and Rays).

Patrick will be tasked with slowing down the Cubs’ offense this evening. He’s coming off his worst outing of the season, but he has been a revelation on the whole. In 15 games (14 starts) in his rookie season, Patrick holds a 3.25 ERA (122 ERA+) and 3.47 FIP, with 71 strikeouts and 24 walks in 74 2⁄3 innings. He did not pitch against the Cubs in the teams’ first series.

On the other side it will be Ben Brown, who has struggled this season (5.71 ERA in 69 1⁄3 innings) but has suffered from some rotten luck. He’s a good strikeout pitcher (26.8% K rate, 29.3 whiff percentage, both in the top quarter of the league, 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings) and his walks aren’t too bad, so he holds a very good 3.61 K:BB ratio. But he’s given up a ton of hits, largely because of a sky-high BABIP (.368). Brown’s FIP sits at just 3.30—even better than Patrick’s—so there is good reason to expect his ERA to come down quite a bit.

Brown did also shut down the Brewers when they played on May 2nd, to the tune of six innings with no runs, four hits, and no walks allowed. He’s been inconsistent lately; he’s allowed six or more runs in three of his last five starts, but the other two were both excellent, a seven-inning, two-run outing against the league-best Detroit Tigers on June 6th, and six innings of one-hit, nine-strikeout, shutout ball against the Reds on May 31st.

The Brewers are rolling with a familiar lineup today, one that resembles the one they’ve been using most often since Sal Frelick moved into the leadoff spot for the series with the Cardinals. Isaac Collins is tonight’s left fielder, and everyone else is who you’d expect.

First pitch is at 7:05 p.m., on TV on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and also over the air on WITI in Milwaukee. And you can, of course, listen on the Brewers Radio Network.