Cubs Lineup Change is Good, But Somehow Worse

Hey, who knows, maybe Christopher Morel comes through and gets another big hit in the series finale against the Arizona Diamondbacks, but once again David Ross is leaving Cubs fans up in arms over his lineup on Sunday.

The summer of Mike Tauchman may be having a premature end because the veteran outfielder has been awful for the past month and on Sunday he’s getting the rare day off against a left-handed pitcher. So, it’s good to see Tauchman not getting the auto-start from Ross. However, Morel is leading off and he’s been even worse during the last 30 days.

You cannot have your worst hitter leading off. It makes no sense.

I also like that Ian Happ is out of the three spot. He has actually been producing in the second half, but it does seem like Happ would be better suited at the top of the order because of his great plate discipline.

For whatever reason, the Cubs have not gone back to Happ at leading off and instead he’s batting sixth as the Cubs try to avoid a four-game sweep.

Ross has talked about sticking with the players that have gotten the Cubs back in the playoff mix, but you’d hope that he does take other factors into consideration when composing the lineup. You can argue that having a consistent every-day lineup is good for the players to get comfortable, but I’m just not sure guys like Tauchman deserve that much confidence, seeing as he hasn’t put up a consistent track record in his career.

But this point becomes if other guys step up. Dansby Swanson has been struggling and so has Jeimer Candelario, who was the big trade deadline pick up for the offense. The Cubs also haven’t had much production from the third base position lately.

The reason the Cubs did jump into a Wild Card spot was because several guys were getting hot, picking up the slack for guys struggling. Now, it’s only been 2-3 guys getting the big hits, while the majority of the lineup has gone cold. Hopefully the offense gets it going again in the final three weeks of the regular season because things are getting tight in the Wild Card race and the Cubs are falling further behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central division.