Thanks again, MLB schedulers. It has been more than 16 months since the Cubs last played in New York -- so long ago that eight players who played in that April 22, 2010 game in a Cubs uniform aren't in the organization any more. (Chad Tracy? Jeff Gray? Those guys were Cubs for about five minutes, I think.)

Nevertheless, here we are with another series against a team that used to be a hated division rival. Now we see them in passing, every year or so, and they seem to have different uniforms every time we see them. (Check out the Mets lineup from that game last year, too.)

Cubs lineup:

Castro SS, Barney 2B, Ramirez 3B, Pena 1B, Soriano LF, Byrd CF, LaHair RF, Soto C, Coleman P

Mets lineup:

Reyes SS, Turner 2B, Duda RF, Wright 3B, Pagan CF, Bay LF, Evans 1B, Thole C, Pelfrey P

Today's Starting Pitchers

Casey Coleman Cubs vs. Mike Pelfrey Mets 2-7 W-L 7-11 6.61 ERA 4.68 51 SO 93 38 BB 59 7 HR 19 vs. NY -- vs. Cubs

Trust me. You don't really want to look at Casey Coleman's only career start and appearance against the Mets. Don't click on the link. Just don't. (And you're going to anyway, right? Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Mike Pelfrey has made two career starts vs. the Cubs, one in 2009 and one in 2010. He has a career 0.60 ERA and 0.80 WHIP against them, and only two players currently on the team (Alfonso Soriano and Geovany Soto) have had anything more than a single off him. Clearly, we are doomed.

Today's game is on CSN Chicago Plus (check local listings!) and SNY. Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Mets site Amazin' Avenue.

Today's first pitch thread will be up at 6:10 p.m. CDT and the overflow threads will post at 7 pm, 8 pm and 8:45 pm CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section.

Discuss amongst yourselves.