Chicago Cubs Lineup (3/13/26): Busch at DH, Amaya Catching, Mo Baller at 1B, Battle of Martins on Bump
The Cubs are in Camelback Ranch to face the White Sox this afternoon, which means the game will be on both TV and radio. Neither will be a Cubs broadcast, of course, but at least fans are being given the opportunity to follow if they so choose. Making the start for the visitors is 27-year-old lefty Riley Martin, a Quincy, IL native who has spent the last two-plus seasons at Triple-A Iowa.
Exclusively a reliever, Martin has been used a few times as an opener over the course of his professional career. That will be the case today as Craig Counsell opts for another bullpen game. Despite big strikeout numbers at every stop, Martin’s spotty control has kept him from taking the next step. His 13.4% walk rate last season was way too high, yet it was still his best mark in three seasons. Even if he maintains the ability to miss bats, he’s got to figure out how to find the zone more often.
Counsell is moving things around a little in this one, with Michael Busch at DH and Miguel Amaya catching now that Panama’s WBC run is over. Michael Conforto is in left, Chas McCormick is in right, and Moises Ballesteros gets some time at first base. Owen Miller slides to second base, B.J. Murray is at third, Kane Kepley gets the start in center, and Ben Cowles handles short.
They’re up against Davis Martin, a 29-year-old righty who made 25 starts with one relief appearance for the Sox last season. He managed to get decent results despite underlying metrics that indicate he should have done anything but. The saving grace was a 45.9% grounder rate that helped to erase the mistakes from a mediocre walk rate and a whole lot of hard contact.
Davis keeps his four-seam up in the zone to set up a change that has very good depth, and the latter is thrown hard enough to fool hitters with more than just movement. Though the fastball was only around 94 mph last year, the changeup was just above 90 mph. Davis also has a slider, curve, sweeper, and cutter, none of which were consistent enough to be very competitive.
The slider carried well out of the zone so often that hitters could spit on it, and the curve was sprayed all over the place. His sweeper never got the kind of horizontal movement it needed and should probably just be scrapped. It’s a good thing for Davis that he’s been on such a bad team for the last few years, as he might not have gotten such a long runway somewhere else.
I will always root for pitchers who are willing to grind it out for years, so I hope he’s indeed able to put it all together. Just not today. First pitch is at 3:05pm CT on Chicago Sports Network and ESPN 1000. There’s a heat wave coming to the Phoenix area in the coming days, so some games will be flexed into the evening hours to avoid the worst of the triple-digit temps. That includes both ends of next Friday’s split-squad doubleheader, with more Cactus League contests being pushed back as well.
Chicago matchup in AZ! pic.twitter.com/oFYF7SeKQ9
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) March 13, 2026
