Chicago Cubs Lineup (3/16/26): Shaw Leads Off at 1B, Bethancourt DH, Horton Starting

The Cubs have a late game tonight, their first of several this week as temperatures rise in the Phoenix area. Today’s high is only 92 or so, about 12 degrees cooler than it’s expected to get over the next few days. You can call it a dry heat, but that midday sun is unrelenting. I mean, an oven is dry too, but I wouldn’t want to put my head inside.

Then again, I am chronically online and spend way too much time on X, which is the equivalent of microwaving my brain for hours a day. When I’m finally done with this little passion project and I no longer need social media to gather and disseminate information, I think cutting back on my social media usage will greatly improve my quality of life. And with that, I just realized how much worse things tend to get when the real games start.

Oh joy.

For now, the games are still fake and still shielded from us by a lack of comprehensive broadcasts. That’s why we’ve really only seen highlights of Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown, with Cade Horton‘s starts also receiving limited coverage. You can watch him on Guardians.TV tonight, though, so that’s a plus. Horton had a bumpy start the last time out, but he came away feeling good about his mechanics.

Everyone has a bad game every now and then, and I expect him to settle right back in and get back to looking like an ace soon enough. That might not be tonight, especially if he’s focused on working on something in particular, but Horton will be fine by the end of the month when it matters.

The lineup should be fine as well, though it’s been a while now since we’ve seen the Cubs at full strength. While that’s the case with any Cactus League campaign, having stars out due to their participation in the WBC creates additional continuity issues. At the same time, it affords even more opportunities for non-roster players to show what they can do.

Matt Shaw isn’t an NRI, but having fewer regulars around lets him move all over the diamond. He’s leading off at first base tonight, followed by Miguel Amaya behind the dish, Dylan Carlson in left, and Christian Bethancourt at DH. Kevin Alcántara is in right, B.J. Murray is at third, Jefferson Rojas plays second, and Scott Kingery is the shortstop. Brett Bateman gets the start in center.

Going for the Guards is 26-year-old Gavin Williams, their first-round pick (No. 23 overall) out of East Carolina in 2021. After debuting in 2023, Williams missed a chunk of the ’24 season due to elbow inflammation. He spent all of last year in Cleveland, making 31 starts with a 3.06 ERA that may have gotten some help from good fortune. His .254 BABIP against and a 4.29 expected ERA suggest that some of his success may have been a mirage.

Though he’s armed with a 97 mph running four-seam that he threw nearly 40% of the time, Williams got far better results from all of his secondaries. His loopy 82 mph curve was particularly effective, and he also threw his sweeper and cutter with decent frequency. Neither pitch got as much horizontal movement as you’d expect, which is in keeping with the fastball, but they worked well because they tunneled well off the heater.

Or at least that was the case when Williams was on. He tended to nibble at the corners of the zone, which led to a lot of walks and deep counts. Hitters didn’t chase very often, so he was often forced to come back over the plate when he fell behind. Dialing in the command and being able to work the zone without being too fine could see Williams take a big step forward in his second full season.

First pitch is at 8:05pm CT with TV and radio coverage provided only by the home team.