Former Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell has named former Brewers right-handed pitcher Colin Rea the Chicago Cubs game one starter.

Rea, 35, is still the lone starter named for this upcoming three-game slate. Brewers fans know Counsell quite well, as does manager Pat Murphy, do this should come as no surprise.

In 12 starts this year, Rea sports a 5-5 record with a 4.99 ERA. For the first time since 2021, he has a negative WAR (-0.6).

Rea's coming off a great start on Saturday, June 20, one that saw him allow just three hits in 5.1 innings of work. Most impressively, it marked his first appearance of the year where he didn't allow a run.

That 5-5 record doesn't look the best knowing Rea started the season a perfect 3-0. The Iowa native was red-hot, allowing just five earned runs with 12 strikeouts to four walks in a 17.2 inning sample size from April 8 to April 20. From there, things started to go downhill.

Rea would later improve to 4-1, but he's taken four losses in his last nine appearances. That said, two of those losses have been in his last three games played. It should be noted that Rea is set to make his 13th start of the year in his 17th game played. 

According to Baseball Savant, Rea is in the bottom 15% percentile in Whiff% (14%), K% (14%), xBA (11%), xERA (10%), and Barrell% (7%). He's getting batters to chase 30.8% of the time which is in the higher half of the league, as are his BB% (8.1%, 56% percentile) and GB% (44.3%, 58% percentile).

Overall, he's still throwing his four-seam fastball far more than any of his other pitches. Against lefties, it's his go-to at 45% of the time.

He doesn't mix up his pitches against left-handed hitters nearly as much as he goes to the changeup 28% of the time. Together, the four-seamer and changeup will be pitches to watch against the likes of Christian Yelich and Garrett Mitchell.

For righties, he's still throwing the fastball 37% of the time. From there he mixes in both the sweeper (21%) and sinker (20%), along with quite a few appearances from his slider (15%). Should he need to go deeper into his bag of tricks, Rea can also throw a cutter and curveball.

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