In case you missed it in the comments to Friday's recap, the last time the Cubs won more than six games in a row was from May 26 to June 3, 2008, when they won nine straight. That was part of a 16-4 run that put the team solidly in first place.
This year's team may be occupied with lesser things, but this winning streak is still nice. I'd like to keep it going, especially against the Reds. The Cubs don't have a very good record within the NL Central; they're 21-29 going into today's game, and that includes this six-game streak, all of which is against NL Central teams.
Cubs lineup:
Castro SS, Barney 2B, Ramirez 3B, Peña 1B, Byrd CF, Johnson RF, Soriano LF, Soto C, Zambrano P
Um, where's Tyler Colvin? Missing again?
Reds lineup was not available at posting time.
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Johnny Cueto, who missed the first month of the season, has been very good since he came back May 8 against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, where he threw six shutout innings. His 1.72 ERA doesn't lead the NL, but only because he does not yet have enough innings to qualify. He will after today's game -- unless the Cubs knock him out after four innings or fewer. Current Cubs could do that -- they're hitting .295 (38-for-124) against him with six home runs (three by Alfonso Soriano).
Carlos Zambrano, after being erratic much of the year, had a very good first start of August, on August 1 at Pittsburgh, the second win of the current streak. His only start vs. the Reds this year -- that, you probably don't want to look at. Current Reds are hitting .285 (49-for-172) against him with four home runs (two by Brandon Phillips).
Today's game is on CSN Chicago and FSN Ohio. Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Reds site Red Reporter. Be careful over there, though.
Today's first pitch thread will be up at 12:05 p.m. CDT and the overflow threads will post at 1 pm, 2 pm and 2:45 pm CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section.
Discuss amongst yourselves.