Shota Imanaga has become the hinge on which the Cubs’ weekend at Wrigley turns: he is the only Cubs starter to log more than five innings in the last two full turns through the rotation, and his two most recent outings—seven innings and two runs in a 4-1 loss to the Braves, followed by 4 1/3 innings and eight runs in a 9-3 loss to the Brewers on Monday night—have come amid a team slide that began April 9.
Cubs baseball has unraveled since then. The club has lost nine of its last 11 games, scored three runs or fewer in nine of those contests, and been outscored 59-31 in the stretch. Their teammates at the plate have slumped collectively: the team is batting.182 during the run even while out-homering opponents 20-7. Individually, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ian Happ have four hits in 37 at-bats, Dansby Swanson is 5-for-34, Moises Ballesteros is 1-for-18 and Matt Shaw is hitless in 14 at-bats.
The slide cost the Cubs first place. They fell out of the division lead and entered the weekend in second place, 1 1/2 games behind the Brewers after Milwaukee swept three games from Chicago this week.
The opposing lineup arrives with its own problems. The Astros are 4-8 since April 9 and sit 11 games under.500, in fourth place in the AL West. Over that same stretch they are batting.186, averaging 1.9 runs per game and have been outscored 52-23. The roster has been thinned by pitching injuries: Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier are out with shoulder strains, and Lance McCullers was put on the injured list this week with shoulder inflammation. Spencer Arrighetti has been the Astros’ best pitcher this season.
Even the hitters offering hope have been inconsistent, though Alex Bregman has been a rare bright spot in recent days—he is batting.286 in the Cubs’ last 11 games and has 12 hits in that span. Still, the broader diagnosis is blunt: as Yordan Alvarez said, "I think right now we’re struggling a little bit."
Lineup and rotation questions will shape the astros vs cubs series in practical ways. The Cubs are scheduled to send Jameson Taillon to the mound on Friday and Colin Rea on Saturday; Ben Brown could start Sunday if the club gives Imanaga a sixth day of rest. The club also dealt a scare when Edward Cabrera was lifted after throwing one pitch in the fourth inning on Wednesday night because of a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand. The team expects to know by Friday whether Cabrera can make his next start.
What will complicate matters further at Wrigley is the weather. The app Wrigley Winds projects the wind will be blowing in for all three games, a mechanical fact that undercuts a notable edge the Cubs have kept during the slump: despite their hitting woes they have outhomered opponents 20-7 over the stretch. Wind blowing into the park typically suppresses balls leaving the yard and rewards pitching and situational hitting—areas where both clubs have struggled recently.
The tension is obvious. The Cubs have power but lack on-base and contact consistency; the Astros have neither reliable offense nor a healthy rotation. Both clubs were once promising—Houston opened the year 6-3 before a 14-28 run left them deep under.500—but the current reality is two teams that must try to reverse course at the same moment. Bregman’s recent hot streak and Imanaga’s one dominant recent outing are the slender threads either side can hang its hopes on.
If Imanaga cannot give length and the Cubs’ slumping hitters cannot produce more than the occasional home run in wind-forced conditions, Chicago’s skid is likely to continue—and the decision to hand him an extra day of rest or not will feel less like scheduling and more like crisis management. The most consequential question this weekend is whether one club can find enough offense or health to stop the other’s slide; otherwise the series may simply be two struggling teams grinding through three wind-blown games at Wrigley Field.
