After a 26-12 start to the season, the Chicago Cubs have gone just 7-18 over their last 25 games, including a winless 6-game homestand. If the 2025 Giants were here, they could relate in all these ways. Instead, it’s the 2026 Giants slated to face off against a team projected to be one of the best teams in the National League. These Giants have been a huge disappointment, even bigger than what these Cubs have been over that 25 game stretch.
Will the Giants help the Cubs get back on track?
That’s usually
what bad teams do, and the 2026 San Francisco Giants are a bad baseball team. They’d have to go 56-43 the rest of the way just to match last season’s .500 record. On the other hand, yesterday’s nail-biter of a win was the 63rd game of the season — or, better yet, the first game of the final 100 games of the season. Putting it that way, maybe there’s a chance that this could be a different team… provided the pitching comes around.
On that note, the Giants are on equal footing with the Cubs. Both teams are in the bottom five of pitching value, with the Giants’ +2.1 fWAR 27th in MLB while the Cubs’ +2.6 is just ahead of them at 26th. For those who don’t believe in wins above replacement, the Giants’ 4.60 team ERA is 23rd while the Cubs’ 4.17 ERA is 18th.
Here’s where the comparison gets really wacky:
Over the past 25 games where the Cubs have gone just 7-18, their lineup has been one of the worst in the sport: 83 wRC+ (27th). Over this same span the San Francisco Giants have had the best lineup: 126 wRC+, ahead of the Pirates (120), White Sox (118), Dodgers (116), and Mariners (113). That’s an astonishing figure I didn’t expect to find through this simple split sorting.
Of course, the Giants’ team ERA over this same stretch has been 5.48 (0.0 fWAR), giving them just an 11-15 record. But the Cubs’ pitching hasn’t been any better: 4.72 ERA and -0.2 fWAR. The Cubs seemed to have (temporarily, anyway) burned themselves out following a previous 25-game stretch where they went 21-4, which included two 10-game winning streaks and 5 walk-offs. This latest stretch picks up on the final win of that 21-4 run.
So, in a sense, these two teams are evenly matched entering the series. On paper, the Cubs are supposed to be muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better than the Giants with better players up and down the lineup. Last year, most of us though that the Giants’ terrible slump after the Devers acquisition in mid-June was an anomaly despite all the under the hood warnings. This year’s Cubs have sort of the same issue.
Series overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (25-38) at Chicago Cubs (33-30)
Where: Wrigley Field | Chicago, Illinois
When: Monday, Friday & Saturday at 11:20am PT, Sunday at 5:30pm PT
National broadcasts: Sunday Night Baseball on NBC/Peacock
Projected starters
Friday: Robbie Ray (LHP 3-6, 4.45 ERA) vs. Edward Cabrera (RHP 3-2, 4.00 ERA)
Saturday: Landen Roupp (RHP 5-6, 4.22 ERA) vs. Ben Brown (RHP 2-2, 1.92 ERA)
Sunday: Trevor McDonald (RHP 2-3, 4.50 ERA) vs. Jameson Taillon (RHP 2-5, 5.13 ERA)
Players to watch
Cubs
Ben Brown: As bad as the Cubs’ pitching has been, Ben Brown has been steady. He’s 1-1 in 5 starts during this atrocious 25-game stretch with a 1.73 ERA and 1.80 FIP (3.05 xFIP). He’s struck out 29 and walked 7 while allowing 0 home runs and getting a groundball 52.5% of the time.
He is not the Cubs’ Logan Webb. He features a 96.6 mph average four-seamer and a knucklecurve as his second pitch that has a Whiff rate of 47.4%. He’s also 6’6” and 210 pounds. So, not even Landen Roupp could qualify as a comp. He was a starter then a reliever and now he’s working his way back to being a full-time starter. Is the Giants’ lineup hot enough to cool him down or will he continue his breakout season at their expense?
Pete Crow-Armstrong: Remarkably, the Cubs have done better when he’s done poorly. In his first 28 games of the season, he hit .238/.298/.314 in 115 plate appearances. The Cubs went 17-11. Since then, in 149 plate appearances, he’s slashed .252/.356/.496 with 5 homers and the Cubs are just 16-19. By value, he’s been their best player during this stretch (+1.3 fWAR) and on the season (+2.6). In 13 games against the Giants, he’s hitting just .209/.261/.302.
Nico Hoerner: The guy a lot of Giants fans wanted the team to trade for in the offseason, and for good reason: he’s really good. The second baseman has also been really good against the Giants for his career: .300/.340/.430 in 26 games. He and Dansby Swanson create an almost impenetrable defensive wall up the middle.
Edward Cabrera: The Cubs acquired him from the Marlins in the offseason to boost their rotation and due to injury and ineffectiveness, he’s basically become their #2 starter. Against the Giants for his career, he’s 3-0 with a 1.91 ERA in 5 starts (28.1 IP).
Giants
Bryce Eldridge: He’s played in all 7 games of the road trip so far (starting 6 of them) and is 12-for-23 with 5 doubles, 1 home run, 4 RBI, and 4 walks against 5 strikeouts. That works out to a triple slash of .522/.571/.870 (1.441) in 28 plate appearances. On the season, the Cubs have a 4.02 team ERA and 3.84 xFIP against right-handed hitters, but against left-handed hitters, it’s 4.36 with a 4.21 xFIP. So…
Robbie Ray: The Cubs hit groundballs at around the same rate as the Dodgers (40% vs. 39.5%) but they don’t hit home runs as often (10.7% HR/FB vs. 13.2% HR/FB). But, they do walk a lot (11.0 BB% — 3rd in MLB). This feels like a recipe for another dreadful start. Ray’s got only about a month to salvage his trade value, and while allowing just 1 earned run in 4 IP Coors Field was a decent bounceback after his unwatchable 7-walk performance at home against the White Sox, the Cubs just seem like a team that will take him to task. Now, he’s a career 1-1 with a 1.88 ERA in 4 starts at Wrigley Field (24 IP), but the Cubs — on top of all the stats I just highlighted — have been one of the better teams against left-handed pitching this year (107 wRC+ — 7th in MLB).
Caleb Kilian: Returning to the place where you first made your major league debut has got to feel a little strange, especially when your own role is a bit uncertain. Yes, Kilian’s 3.58 ERA is decent for a reliever and he’s gained velocity and more strikeout stuff since converting from a starter with the Cubs to a reliever with the giants, but he has a 4.91 FIP thanks in part to a 4.55 BB/9 and a 4.21 xFIP thanks to his 1.63 HR/9. There was a moment when the 29-year old looked poised to assume the closer’s role, but even after yesterday’s bailout save, I think it’s clear he’s a 6th/7th inning guy. Will he be able to get some critical outs against his former team, though?
Luis Arraez: He’s 20-for-60 for his career in Wrigley Field (15 games, 68 PA).
Tony Vitello watch
What does he think of the city of Chicago?
Prediction time
It’s not going well for me here in this area of the preview, and when I try to be positive, they don’t come to pass; so, I’ll just be negative. The Cubs will sweep and the fun little split the Giants just enjoyed will be a distant memory very quickly, sort of like how every win has been flushed this year.
