The Milwaukee Brewers won 89 games last season and will look to improve on that as they open the season against their division rivals, the Chicago Cubs. They will have to do it with some new faces as they added four new players to their line-up with Eric Sogard, Avisaíl García, Justin Smoak, and Omar Narvaez joining the fold. The Brewers are hoping that by adding these bats to Christian Yelich's bat, they can do better in hitting 20th in the league in average. Brandon Woodruff gets the start in today's game. He was an impressive 11-3 with a 3.62 ERA and 143 strikeouts last season but he is 0-0 with a 6.75 ERA and 19 strikeouts in his career against the Cubs.

The Chicago Cubs failed miserably down the stretch last season and hope to make a run this season at another title. The Cubs have a stacked line-up led by Anthony Rizzo (if his back holds up), Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber. I look at the Cubs starting pitching as their weakness this year especially at the backend of the rotation. The Cubs will give the opening start to Kyle Hendricks. He was 11-10 with a 3.46 ERA and 150 strikeouts last season. In his career against the Brewers, he is 8-6 with a 3.08 ERA and 109 strikeouts.

Wrigley Field isn't the same without the buzz of the crowd so the Cubs lose an advantage there. Hendricks got hit by the White Sox in the summer camp games. I am taking the Brewers to make a statement to start the season against their division rivals.

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