The Chicago Cubs have an important week ahead with six very winnable games on tap at Wrigley Field after spending this past weekend in New York. Their homestand starts with a three-game series with the Miami Marlins beginning on Monday. The fish enter the series in last place in the NL East with a 15-24 record and a -69 run differential this season, good for second-worst mark in all of baseball.
Following the Marlins, the Cubs get to host the White Sox for three games in what is known as “rivalry” weekend across the league. The White Sox are not currently the worst team in baseball, which is a step up for them from a season ago. They finished the 2024 campaign with the worst record in the modern era (41-121), and while they haven’t looked great this season, they have competed in more ball games. The White Sox enter this week with a 12-29 record, ahead of the 7-33 Rockies, who have the worst record in the league.
The Cubs should be in a good position to win games this week, and one of their hottest bats picked up a career milestone over the weekend that he hopes to use as momentum as the team returns home.
Chicago Cubs’ second baseman Nico Hoerner has 600 career hits
Nico Hoerner collected his 600th career hit in Sunday’s 6-2 loss to the Mets at Citi Field. The second baseman was Chicago’s first-round draft choice out of Stanford in 2019 and he has carved out a nice career for himself with the organization. He even earned a new contract at the beginning of the 2023 campaign that has him in the Windy City through the end of the 2026 season.
Hoerner has a knock in his last six games, and the Cubs will need him to continue to be a steady presence in the middle of the lineup moving forward. He is slashing .281/.318/.349 this season with a .668 OPS in 37 games. The 27-year-old did not make the trip with the team to Japan at the beginning of the season against the Dodgers, as he was still recovering from offseason surgery.
Nico Hoerner has looked like he did in 2023 so far this season
A big issue for Hoerner in the 2024 season was that he hit the ball in the air too much. He was much more successful in 2023 when he focused more on hitting line drives and getting on-base at a high clip. Hoerner’s WAR reflected that two years ago, as he posted a 5.5 mark in 2023. This was the highest WAR in a single season in his career, and he paired it with a .283 batting average and a .729 OPS in a year where the Cubs just missed out on the postseason.
Hoerner does not have a home run yet this season, and that is more than fine. If this means that he’s focusing more on spraying line drives all over the base and getting on base at a high rate, that is what the Cubs need more out of him than anything else.
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