Cubs Look to Sweep Giants, Suzuki's Status Clouded

After a 6-1 win Saturday night over the Giants, the Cubs have won their first series since the first week of May and have a chance this Sunday afternoon to sweep the Giants.

Get your brooms ready, friends!

The Cubs plan to use Ryan Rolison as their opener and eventually let Colin Rea take over from there.

Who: Chicago Cubs (37-34) vs San Francisco Giants (28-43)

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, CA

When: 2:10 PM CT

Watch: ABC

Listen: 104.3 The Score

1. Pete Crow-Armstrong, CF

2. Alex Bregman, 3B

3. Michael Busch, 1B

4. Ian Happ, LF

5. Michael Conforto, RF

6. Carson Kelly, C

7. Pedro Ramirez, 2B

8. Moises Ballesteros DH

9. Dansby Swanson, SS

So when the Cubs announced their lineup earlier, it included Seiya Suzuki batting 5th at DH in the finale for the Giants.

This gave me, and I'm sure many Cubs fans, a giant-sized sigh of relief after Suzuki exited Saturday's game, hurting his knee chasing a fly ball.

However, about an hour after Suzuki was included in the lineup, he was scratched for Moises Ballesteros, who will DH and bat 8th today.

The Chicago Tribune's Meghan Montemurro had more to share from Counsell's pregame comments on Suzuki:

After departing last night’s game with right knee discomfort, Seiya Suzuki was in Cubs lineup today as the DH but has been scratched.

He tested the knee by running pregame, but Counsell decided to give Suzuki a day off to be conservative with it.

Suzuki is considered day to day.

It sounds like the Cubs are just being overly cautious with Suzuki at the moment, knowing how crucial he and Pete Crow-Armstrong have been on offense as of late.

The Cubs do travel back home tonight to face the Rockies at 7 pm Monday night, so it sounds like Counsell wants to get Suzuki to Wrigley before putting him back in the lineup.

Plus, the Cubs have Pedro Ramirez, who hit his first Major League home run yesterday — going back-to-back with Ian Happ, who went yard for the 16th time this season.

Cubs hopefully have enough offensive momentum to survive a game without Suzuki, assuming it is just one game.

1. Matt Chapman, 3B

2. Luis Arraez, 2B

3. Bryce Eldrige, 1B

4. Rafael Devers, DH

5. Casey Schmitt, LF

6. Willy Adames, SS

7. Jung Hoo Lee, RF

8. Daniel Susac, C

9. Drew Gilbert, CF

This Giants team has been up and down on offense, scoring 3 runs or fewer in six of their last seven games.

Rolison will be the opener today for the Cubs, expecting to go one inning before making way for Colin Rea, who will ideally get the bulk of the work today for the Cubs.

Colin Rea has been doing his typical Colin Rea thing all season, which is to say, he'll turn in 3-4 good (or at least playable) starts in a row followed by a big blow-up outing.

His last one, versus Colorado, was of the blow-up variety: 4.2 IP, 9H, 7ER, 3BB, 2K.

So today…

Rea is coming off a bad outing in Colorado that we probably could have seen seen coming, given the Denver air and his ability to give up hard contact.

He allowed 7 earned runs on 9 hits and 2 home runs to the worst team in baseball.

Before this blowup in Colorado, Rea had strung together some quality starts and had lowered his ERA to 4.59 before seeing it rise to 5.19 in his last start.

Logan Webb has been pitching like Logan Webb, a 3.88 ERA on the season, but in his last 7 starts, he's allowed 3 runs or less in 6 of them — good for a 3.12 ERA.

He's only allowed 4 home runs on the season, and he hasn't given up more than 1 in a game this year.

The Cubs will need to be prepared to play some small ball because runs will be a premium vs the Giants ace this afternoon.

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