When the Blue Jays were last at Wrigley Field in August 2024, thousands of Jays fans followed them to Chicago. I found them to all be passionate fans, but also friendly and unfailingly polite.
As we are near the beginning of summer travel season, I’d expect more Jays fans at Wrigley again this weekend — and in fact, I have heard all three games are already near-sellouts. So, welcome!
This series matches two teams that were supposed to be World Series contenders, but at this time both are struggling.
For more on the Blue Jays, here’s Tom Dakers, manager of our SB Nation Blue Jays site Bluebird Banter.
What can I say about the Blue Jays? Well, they have been incredibly average. They can hit, unless, of course, there are RISP, and then they hit much as you or I would. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the ‘face’ of the team, has been in a deep slump and an even deeper power outage. Earlier in the season, he was hitting well, just not hitting home runs. Now, if you look at his stats, you’d see he has three home runs, and that’s not a typo. Three.
The starting pitching has been pretty good, other than Max Scherzer, whom you are unlucky enough to miss out on seeing. The team has been getting starting pitchers back from the IL, so we weren’t going the ‘bullpen days’ two times out of five. Louis Varland has been amazing in the closer role, after Jeff Hoffman had enough blowups to lose the job. Hoffman has a great strikeout rate (36.1 percent) and a roughly equal home run rate (well, not really, but he does seem to give up home runs at the worst possible moments). On the good news side, Alejandro Kirk and Nathan Lukes are back and hitting well.
We Jays fans are hanging our hopes on the fact that they are in about the same spot as they were at this time last year, and that turned out pretty good.
Fun facts
The Cubs have played only nine previous games at home against the Blue Jays, their fewest vs. any current big league team.
They played more against three long-defunct National League clubs: 10 vs. the Hartford Dark Blues, 11 vs. the Louisville Grays and 11 vs. the St. Louis Brown Stockings, all in 1876-77, the league’s first two seasons.
The Cubs are 6-3 at Wrigley Field vs. the Jays. They lost two of three in 2005, swept three in 2017 and won two of three in 2024, missing a sweep when they lost the finale, 1-0.
(Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
Probable pitching matchups
Friday: Ben Brown, RHP (3-2, 1.74 ERA, 0.968 WHIP, 2.36 FIP) vs. Kevin Gausman, RHP (4-4, 3.41 ERA, 1.034 WHIP, 3.20 FIP)
Saturday: Colin Rea, RHP (5-5, 5.35 ERA, 1.459 WHIP, 5.03 FIP) vs. Patrick Corbin, LHP (2-3, 4.57 ERA, 1.475 WHIP, 4.41 FIP)
Monday: Shōta Imanaga, LHP (4-6, 4.26 ERA, 1.062 WHIP, 4.58 FIP) vs. Dylan Cease, RHP (3-3, 2.91 ERA, 1.162 WHIP, 2.35 FIP)
Times & TV channels
Friday: 1:20 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network, also streaming on Peacock (outside the Cubs and Blue Jays market territories)
Saturday: 1:20 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Sunday: 1:20 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Prediction
The Cubs have had their struggles of late, but now they are facing a team that has had trouble winning on the road. The Jays are 16-20 away from Toronto, though they now have a winning record this month, 8-7, while the Cubs are 7-8 so far in June.
The pitching matchups seem to slightly favor the Jays, but I still think this is a series the Cubs can win. Two of three. If the Cubs can do that, that would be three straight series wins.
Up next
The Cubs head to New York for a four-game series against the Mets beginning Monday evening.
