September gauntlet run continues as Braves hand the ball to Reynaldo Lopez at Wrigley

Well, ten games into the Braves‘ 16-contest headlong stroke through a sea of contenders, so far so good. Though the Braves have only gone 5-5 in those ten games, that’s included four wins (and three loses) against the Phillies, solidifying Atlanta‘s chances of taking home a division title for the first time since 2023. On September 3, the calm before this specific storm, the Braves had a four-game lead over the Phillies, and division odds of 84 percent. Currently, they have a five-game lead over the Phillies, and division odds of 99 percent. Not bad for a 5-5 stretch.

But, the games still need to be played, and the Braves can’t fully coast yet. They’ve got six more games against contenders, while the Phillies are off today and begin a series in Washington tomorrow. The first part of those six games for Atlanta? A visit to Wrigley Field, with the probably-playoff-bound-but-very-bizarre Cubs for three games.

I talk about the Braves having a weird season and being a weird team, but the Cubs probably have them beat in this regard. Are the Cubs good? Probably. They have the majors’ sixth-best record (five games behind the Braves, though), as well as the fourth-best run differential and BaseRuns performance. But, here’s where it gets bizarre: the Cubs are far and away the most productive team in MLB both offensively and defensively… while having MLB’s worst pitching.

Seriously. The Cubs have 35.2 position player fWAR. The next-closest team, the Brewers, is at 24.3. If you take that 11ish fWAR gap and go from the Brewers on down, you get the Giants, who are ranked 25th. It’s insane. In 2023, the Braves, with their historic offensive season, finished about 6 fWAR up on the Rangers. The 2019 Astros paced the second-place team by 8.5 fWAR. We haven’t seen a gap this large between the top two teams in position player fWAR since 2001, which featured the Mariners outclassing the Cardinals by 13-plus. It’s been a rout on both sides of the ball, too. The Cubs are the only team with a wRC+ above 110. They have more than double the defensive value, in runs above average, than the next-closest team.

This sort of thing can only happen when something unusual rears it head, and yeah, that’s going on too. The Cubs have the third-highest xwOBA outperformance as a team. This isn’t a wind-at-Wrigley Field thing, either, as the Cubs haven’t had a notable xwOBA outperformance since somewhere around 2021-2022. It’s more just a syzygy of good fortune: among their 12 players with 200+ PAs, nine have a sizable xwOBA overperformance, two are neutral-ish, and only one guy (poor Nico Hoerner) is basically serving the role of sin eater for his teammates. Notably, only likely NL MVP Pete Crow-Armstrong is even hitting the cover off the ball — none of the other guys have an xwOBA above .341. But, thanks to the balls falling, ten guys have an above-average batting line anyway.

But, there’s a very dark flip side to all this. The Cubs may register a far-and-away first in position player fWAR, but… in pitching fWAR, they’re dead last. Their rotation is bottom five, their bullpen is bottom five. They made a bunch of pitching additions at the Trade Deadline… and rank even worse since that day has passed (29th). Much like the offense, though, it’s somewhat the result of shenanigans: the Cubs have a perfectly beige 100 xFIP-, but have been stung by HR/FB to an incredible degree. The gap between their HR/FB (14.8 percent) and that of the Athletics, who play in a minor league park and don’t really have any pitching to speak of (13.7 percent) is far larger than any other two sequentially-ranked teams. It’s neither entirely homers nor any semblance of poor fielding or positioning. It just looks like the baseball gods giveth with one hand, and taketh (or giveth to the other team) with the other.

Since I’ve been watching baseball, only the 2007 Phillies and 2008 Cardinals have come close — first in position player fWAR and 25th in pitching fWAR — but both of those teams had more than double the pitching fWAR of the Cubs. In fact, I went and pulled all of baseball history, and those two teams came closest to this kind of disparity… something that the Cubs will almost certainly shatter this year. (If you want a runner-up, consider the 2000 Angels: the league’s worst pitching, but second in position player value.)

Nor does the wildness stop there. The Cubs have had two ten-game winning streaks… and a ten-game losing streak. They join the 2017 Dodgers as the only team to manage that kind of feat.

The Braves took two of three from the Cubs back in the halcyon days of May. The Cubs have largely tread water over about the last month: they’re won just 11 of their last 28 games, and are one game below .500 since the start of August, but four games above .500 since the All-Star Break. The pattern of god-tier hitting/fielding and awful pitching has largely held… though it’s worth noting that over the last two weeks, the Cubs are more mediocre in both than their usual divergent pattern.

Okay, well, that was 900 words largely about the Cubs… so let’s go to the pitching matchup briefly. It’s far from a marquee event on that basis.

The Braves will once again give the ball to Reynaldo Lopez as they free-wheel their rotation and give everyone rest and sundry for the playoffs. Lopez has appeared in 25 games, including 12 starts. His line is meh: 98/106/103 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-). His xFIP is basically the same across his starting and relieving stints, though he’s been more homer-prone as a starter. Lopez started the season in the rotation and was pretty terrible through five starts, then went to the bullpen and pitched like a mop-up guy, but then returned to the rotation and gave the Braves six starts of mid-rotation, Wade Miley-esque performance. That was fairly handy, but he was then sidelined with a knee injury for over a month. His return went really poorly, as he got BABIPed, HR/FBed, and everything else under the sun by the Rays in 4 2/3 innings. Given that, I wouldn’t expect much from Lopez this time around, either.

Lopez faced the Cubs as a reliever this year and gave up a homer to Ian Happ — that came in a 2-0 loss despite Chris Sale getting the start. The only other run in that game came as a result of a defensive error while Sale was in the game.

The Cubs will be starting a guy the Braves are very familiar with: David Peterson, an acquisition from the Mets in late June. Peterson was working as a swingman in Queens and had a 148/92/96 line at the time of the trade. Since then, he’s made 13 appearances for the Cubs and has a 107/107/97 line. The Cubs basically got exactly what they figured, albeit with some extra homers baked in. (Peterson was at 101/95/92 in six seasons with the Mets before 2026, so maybe the Cubs are a little disappointed.) He was terrible after the trade for most of July, but had a nice August, and has been a mixed bag since — his exposure in September so far was two starts against the Brewers, one where he was blown up and one where he did okay.

The Braves have a long history against Peterson, as he’s faced them 14 different times. He’s actually pitched better against them than his career line in terms of xFIP — but the Braves have hit a lot of homers off him, so his FIP is relatively inflated. The Braves will probably need to get some homers again if they want to hang with the Cubs while Lopez takes the hill.

Game Date/Time: Monday, September 14, 7:40 p.m. EDT

Location: Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL

TV/Streaming: BravesVision, MLB Network

Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM