It’s been impossible for the Orioles to sustain genuine momentum this season, and … I’m not sure this series, involving three home games against the Chicago Cubs, is going to be the one that does it.
The Cubs come to Camden Yards in second place in the NL Central, six games back of a red-hot Brewers club, and considering their genuinely bad rotation health luck, to be still in second is pretty gritty of them. At 50-40, Chicago has actually won 7 of its last 10, but that’s despite a starting five that’s been
held together with duct tape most of the year. (The Orioles, at 42-49 and buried in fourth in the AL East, 12 games back, don’t have the injury excuse in quite the same way.)
The Cubs bring real thump. As a team they’ve got one of the top two offenses in the game, per Fangraphs, with a .244/.338/.409 slash line with 112 home runs. Pete Crow-Armstrong has been the engine of it, with his .910 OPS with 19 homers and 23 steals, almost an unfair line to be getting from your centerfielder. Dansby Swanson has been so-so for most of the year (.716 OPS) but has caught fire over his last month (.981 OPS). Seiya Suzuki (13 HR, .795 OPS) and Ian Happ (17 HR, .768 OPS) round out a lineup that can change a game with one swing.
On the Baltimore side, the story is uneven as always. Gunnar Henderson has 16 homers but only a .701 OPS. Pete Alonso has quietly been Baltimore’s best hitter (.810 OPS, 19 HR), and Samuel Basallo has shown real thump too, at age 21 (.789 OPS, 14 HR). Coby Mayo, on the other hand, is still searching—a .628 OPS overall, though he’s shown flashes in shorter stretches this year.
Here’s how these two teams match up in each game of the series.
Game 1, Tuesday: 6:35pm Eastern
RHP Shane Baz (4-8, 4.19 ERA, 87 K) v. LHP Matthew Boyd (3-1, 5.08 ERA, 37 K)
Baz has settled in as a legitimate mid-rotation piece since coming over from Tampa, and his recent form has been solid—a sub-.700 OPS against over his last 28 days of work. The one soft spot is the platoon split: he’s been much tougher on right-handed hitters (.667 OPS against) than lefties (.802), and the Cubs lineup has real left-handed power in Busch, Suzuki, and Happ.
Boyd is the wild card of the series. He was an All-Star a year ago, but a biceps strain and then knee surgery have limited him to just five starts in 2026. So far, the numbers (6.00 ERA, 1.29 WHIP) reflect a pitcher still finding his rhythm. If the old Boyd shows up, this is a real problem for Baltimore. If not, the Orioles’ lineup should have chances.
Game 2, Wednesday: 6:35pm Eastern
RHP Dean Kremer (1-1, 3.18 ERA, 20 K) v. RHP Colin Rea (6-5, 4.74 ERA, 68 K)
Kremer’s return has been one of the few unambiguous bright spots for Baltimore lately. In three starts since returning from a quad strain, he’s flashing a strikeout rate well above his career norm (10.6 K/9), and the results to match. Whether that holds up over a longer look remains the question, but for now he’s given the rotation exactly the lift it needed.
Rea has been a steadying presence for a Cubs staff that’s had arm after arm hit the injured list (Cabrera, Brown, Taillon, Boyd have all missed time this year) and he’s pitched well in his last three starts specifically, with just three earned runs in 15.1 IP. With one of the worst fastballs in the game by expected run average, he’s not going to overpower anyone, but he’ll compete, and given how thin Chicago’s depth has been, that’s valuable.
Game 3, Thursday: 6:35pm Eastern
LHP Trevor Rogers (6-7, 4.70 ERA, 65 K) v. LHP David Peterson (4-7, 4.28 ERA, 68 K)
Rogers has been the definition of matchup-dependent this year: brutal against right-handers (.779 OPS against) but nearly unhittable against lefties (.526 OPS against). The Cubs lineup skews right-handed outside of Busch, Conforto, and Crow-Armstrong, which doesn’t play to Rogers’s strength the way a lefty-heavy lineup would.
David Peterson has one good thing going for this season: he’s a lefty. Traded from the Mets, the team that drafted him in the first round in 2017, at the end of June, Peterson was struggling in Citi Field and continues to struggle at Wrigley, allowing 12 runs in 9.1 innings so far. Maybe the O’s lately-producing righties—Rutschman, Alonso, Mayo and O’Neill recently—can give the struggling lefty more problems.
The Cubs have a strong lineup, but an injury-riddled rotation. These are winnable games, on paper, for a team that badly needs some. Will the Orioles find enough offense to make it count? What do you think, Birdland?
