The Oakland A’s are down very bad right now, but at least their fans get something to look forward to this week as the team is reportedly going to promote 24-year-old starting pitcher Mason Miller and he could start vs. the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday.

Miller has made two starts at Triple-A this season for the A’s.

Miller was taken in the third round of the 2021 MLB draft out of Gardner-Webb, picked 97th overall. While Miller has only thrown 28.2 innings in the minor leagues since he was drafted, he has already generated comparisons to Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Spencer Strider, who finished second in voting for 2022 National League Rookie of the Year.

In his two starts at Triple-A, Miller has allowed just two hits in 8.2 innings combined. In his last start, Miller threw five perfect innings, striking out 11 batters.

The 24-year-old definitely has nasty stuff and as a Cubs fan, you would certainly prefer not to have to face him in Oakland.

You can see more of Miller from a spring training start against the Seattle Mariners on March 24.

Again, would definitely have liked if the A’s waited to call up Miller until after this Cubs series.

With that being said, we have seen countless times that even a stud pitching prospect can get nervous during his big-league debut and all of a sudden the stuff isn’t so nasty anymore. We’ll see if Miller has ice running through his veins or if he does get a touch of anxiety making his first MLB start.

Regardless, Miller should be a good challenge for the Cubs, who have put together a solid couple of weeks at the plate.

Cubs Hot Offense

After scoring 10 runs and pounding 20 hits against the Oakland A’s on Monday, the Cubs now have the highest-scoring offense in the National League. Heading into Tuesday’s play, the Cubs are also tied with the New York Yankees for the fourth-best run differential in MLB at +25.

As a team, the Cubs rank sixth in MLB with a 113 wRC+ and that’s even more impressive when you look at how little production they have gotten from first base and designated hitter.

The team has a 113 wRC+ despite their first basemen posting a combined 45 wRC+ (28th in MLB) and the DH spot also ranks 28th in MLB with a 49 wRC+.

Unfortunately, much of those numbers have been bad because of Trey Mancini. The right-handed hitter was the only player in the Cubs lineup who didn’t get a hit Monday night, finishing the game 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. And you can’t even make the argument that Mancini is hitting into bad luck either because he has flat out been bad so far in 2023.

Mancini is now slashing .196/.220/.260 in 56 at-bats. He’s obviously not hitting the ball hard through the first two weeks, but Mancini is also hitting the ball on the ground way more than he has in his career. From 2016-22, Mancini had a 48% ground ball rate. That is up to 56.4% so far with the Cubs.

On the flip side, Patrick Wisdom and Cody Bellinger have been on fire.

Wisdom now leads MLB with eight home runs and has the seventh highest wRC+, while Bellinger is up to an .886 OPS following his first career five-hit game on Monday.