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The MLB regular season is well underway, and we have a great matchup in store for Sunday Night Baseball, as the Philadelphia Phillies conclude their three-game series against the Chicago Cubs. Tonight’s series finale takes place at Wrigley Field, and the Phillies Aaron Nola will toe the rubber against the Cubs Jameson Taillon.
Let’s dive into both teams’ performance this season and provide our favorite MLB DFS pick.
The Phillies haven’t exactly shot out of the gates, as they currently sit in 2nd place in the National League East. A big reason for this has been their poor pitching, as they rank in the bottom half of the MLB in earned runs allowed. Additionally, they’ve struggled on the road this season and were just 4-8 when playing outside of Citizens Bank Park when this three-game series with Chicago began.
2B Bryson Stott has been the Phillies’ most consistent batter at the plate, as he’s the only Phillies player with 80+ at-bats and a batting average closer to 0.300. However, Kyle Schwarber leads the teams in home runs, RBIs and on-base percentage (OBP). If Philadelphia wants to make a deep playoff run, they’ll need bigger contributions from 1B Bryce Harper, SS Trea Turner, 3B Alec Bohm and C J.T. Realmuto.
Unlike Philadelphia, the Chicago Cubs have started the season well and currently sit in 1st place in the National League Central. Entering this series, they had 163 runs scored, good for 1st in the MLB. The next closest team is the New York Yankees (137 runs scored), and if the Cubbies keep hitting like this, they should be playing in October.
Newly-acquired RF Kyle Tucker has been the shining star for Chicago after they traded for him in the offseason. Entering this series, Tucker led the team in batting average, home runs, RBIs, OBP and hits. He’s truly having an MVP season thus far, but the Cubs have gotten notable contributions from DH Seiya Suzuki, 2B Nico Hoerner and 1B Michael Busch. Chicago’s offensive performance has been one of the biggest surprises of the early season, but they look poised for a postseason run.
Philadelphia will roll out RHP Aaron Nola tonight, while Chicago will counter with RHP Jameson Taillon. Nola has been bad so far, as he is 0-5 in his five appearances with a 6.43 ERA. However, Taillon hasn’t been much better, and the right-hander has a 4.73 ERA and 1-1 record through five starts. Nola has faced his fair share of stacked offenses, and things won’t get easier against a Cubs team leading the league in runs scored.
Although Nola has shown he can perform at a high level, he hasn’t done so this season. He’s given up at least 2 earned runs in every start this season and allowed 2 HRs and 4 ERs against the New York Mets in his last start. I don’t foresee things getting better for the right-hander at Wrigley Field tonight, and the Phillies starter has a 5.50 ERA in six career starts there. I anticipate more of the same on Sunday Night Baseball and predict Aaron Nola will allow 3+ earned runs.
Luke Lindholm is an avid basketball, baseball, football, hockey and soccer fan who specializes in writing promotional content for multiple sportsbooks and prediction-based articles across a variety of sports. His work has been featured on prominent websites including Sports Illustrated, Pickswise, Men’s Journal, TheStreet, Athlon Sports and more. He started as a college football handicapper for Pickswise in 2016 and is a current member of the Pickswise NFL handicapping team.