Chicago Cubs Lineup (4/10/26): Hoerner Leads Off, Suzuki Returns in RF, Imanaga Starting

Whew, it’s finally Friday. This week feels like one of those that has alternately flown and dragged, but we made it to this point one way or the other. The start of high school baseball means I’ve been running around all over with three games in as many days. While the results weren’t great, it’s been good to see the boys back out there and competing.

My son’s team is a bit of a hodgepodge and you can tell that they’re still getting used to the game and each other. For some, it’s their first high school action. Others might have missed time due to injury or having been cut last year. Then you’ve got the varying weather and equipment conditions, like the home team for the first game essentially supplying BP balls. Seriously, one of our pitchers was given a ball that has that glossy plastic “leather” rather than an actual ball meant to be used in live play.

We hung on to win that game, barely, then lost late on Wednesday, but nothing could have prepared me for what I witnessed last night. Our squad put up 10 runs in the top of the 1st to set up what looked like it would be an easy run-rule game. The home team countered with four, then we tacked on a run in the top of the 2nd to carry a big advantage into the bottom half.

By the time the game was over, we had 16 hits to their eight. The only problem is that we walked 13 batters while not drawing a free pass of our own. Our pitchers also hit five batters and uncorked seven wild pitches, which provided the opponents with just a few too many free bases. The end result was a 22-12 loss — so the run rule applied after all — and a long bus trip home.

Sometimes, you just need a wakeup call. We saw that with the Cubs earlier in the week when the offense sputtered in back-to-back losses. They seem to have bounced back nicely with their first set of consecutive wins, aided by Nico Hoerner leading off twice against righties. Now they have a chance to build an actual streak behind Shota Imanaga, who is making his third start of the year.

The lefty responded nicely after a subpar outing against the Nats by holding the Guardians to just one run on three hits and a walk over five innings. His fastball is sitting just over 92 mph, up from each of his first two MLB seasons, and it’s getting more ride than in the past. It’s also staying a little truer after getting an extra inch-plus of arm-side movement last year. Imanaga could stand to work up in the zone a little more, but keeping the velo and ride up are the biggest keys to his success.

He should be helped by the wind, which will be blowing in from left and center at around 10 mph for most of the afternoon before shifting a little more right-to-left as the game wears on. This Pirates team is slugging a little better than last year, but they’re not the kind of juggernaut you typically worry about regardless of conditions. The Cubs have shown only slightly more power, though, so they may just have to out-hit their rivals this afternoon.

Hoerner is again in the leadoff spot with a righty on the mound, so it looks like this is indeed a permanent thing. Michael Busch bats second, Alex Bregman is third, and Ian Happ is back left after missing two games with a heel bruise. Seiya Suzuki was just activated and will make his first start of the season after missing time with a sprained knee, then it’s Pete Crow-Armstrong in center and Carson Kelly behind the plate. Moises Ballesteros is the DH and Dansby Swanson is at short.

Their foe today is 27-year-old righty Carmen Mlodzinski, who is in his first season as a starter after working primarily in relief over parts of the last three years. His velocity is down a bit on most pitches as a result, and he’s also tweaked his repertoire in a pretty significant way from last year. After incorporating a splitter in 2025 and throwing it about 15% of the time, he’s up to over 27% with it through two starts.

Mlodzinski has also ditched his sweeper and dialed his slider back to barely over 5% of his pitches while throwing his curve at nearly 18%, more than double last year’s usage. The slider was more of a weapon against right-handed hitters and the curve was thrown more to lefties, but the former got poor results and the latter was effective. You can’t really say that his sinker has replaced the slider, but that’s more or less been the case this season. He’s throwing his sinker a little more than before, mainly to righties.

Perhaps most interesting is that Mlodzinski is throwing from a 35-degree slot so far, five notches higher than last year and nine more than in ’24. Most pitchers seem to be lowering their arms, but something about his approach spurred the change. It looks like he may have been chasing too much horizontal movement with his stuff, rather than leaning into the natural sink on his fastball.

Raising his arm angle allows the four-seam and sinker to tunnel better with his curve and splitter, the latter of which has been his best pitch to this point. Mlodzinski has also improved his groundball rate in the early going, and he is getting a lot of strikeouts to boot. He’s also avoided the home run ball, though he’s in the second percentile for both hard-hit rate (68%) and average exit velo (96.2 mph).

We’ll see if the Cubs can take advantage of that as they see their luck continuing to turn following an early stretch in which their hard contact was not turning into production. First pitch from Wrigley is at 1:20pm CT on Marquee and 104.3 The Score.

First Blues Friday of the season!

Watch the game live on @WatchMarquee. pic.twitter.com/5quULmLand

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) April 10, 2026