Ruoff Mortgage Homestand Preview: September 2-7
Published on September 1, 2025 under Midwest League (MWL)
South Bend Cubs News Release
The final week of the 2025 regular season has arrived, pitting the South Bend Cubs against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers for six games to start September at Four Winds Field. The Timber Rattlers are the High-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers and will bring more than half of the Brewers' top 10 prospects to downtown South Bend. They check in with respective overall and second-half records of 34-31 and 19-40, while the Cubs enter at 53-72 and 30-29.
Cubs Need a Big Week: At the beginning of last week, the Cubs entered the final road trip of their season in a tie for first place with the Beloit Sky Carp. Facing the Peoria Chiefs, who had been swept by Dayton, the worst team in the Midwest League by overall record, the Cubs had a prime opportunity to uphold or even strengthen their postseason case.
Neither of those outcomes happened, though, as the Cubs lost all six games at Dozer Park for an untimely road sweep. There were opportunities aplenty for the Cubs to win the weekend, but they came out on the wrong side of 5-4 results on Friday and Saturday before squandering a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning on Sunday.
Because of the Peoria setback, the Cubs now need to put together a winning week against Wisconsin and get some help. They entered Tuesday's series opener three games back of Beloit for the second-half division lead, but in reality it's a four-game difference because Beloit has the tiebreaker on South Bend. Quad Cities has also jumped back ahead of the Cubs, trailing the Sky Carp by a game and a half. This week, the Cubs will become fans of the Chiefs, who visit Beloit, and the Cedar Rapids Kernels, who play at Quad Cities.
Timber Rattlers Having Trouble: The Cubs lead the season series against Wisconsin by a 7-5 margin. Although the Cubs dropped four of six to the Timber Rattlers at home during their low point of the season in late May, they went to Appleton and took five games right before the All-Star break in July.
Offensively, the Timber Rattlers look very different when they did when the Cubs saw them last. Key first-half contributors Hedbert Perez, Eduardo Garcia, Jadher Areinamo, and Blake Burke were all promoted to Double-A about a month ago, leaving room for a host of top Brewers prospects to enter the picture. They haven't offered much help, though, as the Timber Rattlers have struggled badly at the plate this season, and that trend only intensified during August. Top Milwaukee prospect Jesús Made hasn't been a part of the problem, slashing .356/.434/.552 in 22 games since his August 5 arrival in Appleton.
Wisconsin has lost three consecutive series, most recently dropping five out of six home games last week against Quad Cities. Over their last nine games, the Timber Rattlers have averaged hardly more than two runs.
South Bend's players to watch...
Alexis Hernandez, 2B: Since joining the Cubs - and his older brother, Cristian - two weeks ago, Alexis Hernandez has swung the bat well. In his first 10 High-A games, the 20-year-old is hitting .269 with an .886 OPS and seven walks to just four strikeouts. On Tuesday in Peoria, he launched his first Midwest League home runs, also taking a pair of walks in the series opener. Overall, Hernandez picked up three hits and five RBI while taking five walks in his five games played against the Chiefs.
Brian Kalmer, 1B: With two long balls crushed last week in Peoria, Kalmer has taken over the active team lead in home runs with nine. After going without a blast through June 23 this year, Kalmer has shifted into the home-run hitting gear we saw from him when he belted 11 round-trippers in 2024. The first baseman finished August with five home runs - only two Midwest Leaguers went deep more often within the month. Across 47 games since June 7, Kalmer has posted a .251 batting average and a healthy OPS of .800.
Grayson Moore, RHP: The middle of the summer was not kind to Moore, who gave up 11 total runs in 3.1 innings across three outings between June 21 and July 2. Those performances inflated his ERA above 11, but it's been steadily coming down since. Amazingly, since wrapping up that brutal three-game stretch on July 2, Moore has not allowed an earned run in 18 innings. His numbers in August were nothing short of phenomenal - seven walks, 17 strikeouts, and only three hits allowed across 11 scoreless frames.
Top prospects in the series...
South Bend: SS/2B Cristian Hernandez (Cubs No. 11), OF Kade Snell (Cubs No. 20), RHP Jack Neely (Cubs No. 25), RHP Nazier Mulé (Cubs No. 26)
Wisconsin: SS Jesús Made (Brewers No. 1, MLB No. 5), INF Luis Peña (Brewers No. 2, MLB No. 16), 3B/1B Andrew Fischer (Brewers No. 6), RHP Bishop Letson (Brewers No. 7), 1B/3B Luke Adams (Brewers No. 8), C Marco Dinges (Brewers No. 10), 2B Josh Adamczewski (Brewers No. 13)
Schedule and probables...
Tuesday, September 2 - 7:05 PM ET: RHP TBA vs. TBA
Wednesday, September 3 - 7:05 PM ET: TBA vs. TBA
Thursday, September 4 - 7:05 PM ET: TBA vs. TBA
Friday, September 5 - 7:05 PM ET: TBA vs. TBA
Saturday, September 6 - 7:05 PM ET: TBA vs. TBA
Sunday, September 7 - 2:05 PM ET: TBA vs. TBA
Midwest League Stories from September 1, 2025
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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
