Coghlan, Ross in Cubs' Game 1 Lineup vs. Cardinals Friday

The Chicago Cubs will take on John Lackey and the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night at Busch Stadium, and manager Joe Maddon has unveiled his lineup for Game 1 of the NLDS

The Chicago Cubs will take on John Lackey and the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night at Busch Stadium, and manager Joe Maddon has unveiled his lineup for Game 1 of the NLDS.

Here is the full lineup that the Cubs will use as they try to steal a game in St. Louis to start the series:

1 Dexter Fowler – CF

2 Kyle Schwarber – LF

3 Kris Bryant – 3B

4 Anthony Rizzo – 1B

5 Starlin Castro – 2B

6 Chris Coghlan – RF

7 Addison Russell – SS

8 David Ross – C

9 Jon Lester – P

The lineup is similar to ones used by Maddon in Lester starts this season, with Ross coming in to catch instead of Miguel Montero, but there are a couple of other interesting changes. Chris Coghlan joins the lineup despite struggling over the final month of the season, but in his career against Lackey he is 8-for-17 with a double and two RBI, along with an OPS of 1.029.

The Cubs will also retain plenty of options in terms of defensive substitutions later in the game, with Austin Jackson a potential candidate to come in for Schwarber in left field and either Tommy La Stella or Javier Baez able to come in if Maddon opts to replace Castro at second base (although he declined an opportunity to do that in the wild card game vs. Pittsburgh, so a defensive sub may not occur in this game either).

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