The Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs meet in an NL Central division matchup in MLB action from Wrigley Field on Tuesday night.
The Cincinnati Reds will look to rebound from their 6-5 loss at the hands of the Cubs on Monday night. Joey Votto had three RBIs with a home run while Kyle Farmer had a solo home run Tyler Stephenson added an RBI to finish off the scoring for the Reds in the loss while Jesse Winker went 3 for 4 with a double. Jonathan India had two hits while Wade Miley, Aristides Aquino and Eugenio Suarez each had base hits to finish off the Reds’ offense in defeat. Wade Miley allowed three runs on seven hits with a pair of strikeouts over 4.1 innings of work, not factoring in the decision. Heath Hembree ended up with the loss, falling to 2-5 on the year as a result. Vladimir Gutierrez will start here and is 4-3 with a 4.97 ERA and 37 strikeouts this season.
The Chicago Cubs will look to build on their win over the Reds from Monday night. Anthony Rizzo had a two-run home run while Willson Contreras had a solo home run. Javier Baez, Nico Hoerner and David Bote all had rBIs as well to finish off the Cubs’ scoring as a team in the win while Jake Marisnick went 2 for 3 with a double and Kris Bryant had two hits as well. Patrick Wisdom also added a base hit to finish off the Cubs’ offense as a team in the winning effort. Kyle Hendricks gave up five runs on nine hits while striking out four over 4.1 innings of work in the start, not factoring in the decision. Craig Kimbrel got the win in relief to improve to 2-3 on the year. Adbert Alzolay will start here and is 4-10 with a 4.58 ERA and 91 strikeouts this season.
Cincinnati is 4-1 in their last 5 road games and 17-7 in their last 24 division games while the under is 5-1 in their last 6 games as a road underdog. Chicago is 7-18 in their last 25 games overall and 0-8 in their last 8 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall.
I get the case that could be made either way here, but I’m going to side with the under in this spot. Sure, Gutierrez and Alzolay have been pushed around a fair bit this season, but both are also pitchers that I think are better than their numbers would indicate. I think we could end up having a pitchers duel on our hands here, so give me the under in this one.