Athletics vs. Cubs game thread

More baseball in the Windy City

Yesterdays weekends series on the south side of Chicago ended underwhelmingly for the A’s, but they’ll now have a chance to redeem themselves on the north side with another three-game set against the Cubs. It’ll be the battle of the rookies today on the bump with Joey Estes taking the ball against Shota Imanaga — one of the leagues best.

This will mark the 22nd start on the season for Estes and third in the month of September. His 5.06 ERA and 2.95 batting average against for the month contrast a strong August where Estes had a 3.03 ERA and 0.84 WHIP, but both starts this month have came against above average opponents in the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros. Estes is tasked with facing another tough lineup tonight.

Below is the righty-dominant A’s lineup for tonight’s game:

Since making the move from the NPB in Japan to the MLB, Imanaga has dazzled. The all-star southpaw leads the Cubs staff in wins, strikeouts, ERA, WHIP, batting average against, innings pitched and more. If it wasn’t for a crowded cast of candidates, Imanaga would be a surefire National League Rookie of the Year recipient but he could even flirt with some Cy Young award buzz too.

As for the Cubs offense, Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger and Seiya Suzuki make up for the majority of the production. Dansby Swanson is always another name to look out for on both sides of the ball while a pair of rookies are also worth mentioning — power first baseman Michael Busch and entertaining speedster Pete Crow-Armstrong. The Cubs are currently fighting for their playoff lives as they’re the first team looking outside of the wild card race sitting at five games back with 13 to go.

Here’s their lineup as written by manager Craig Counsell:

Let’s go A’s!