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Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals Preview, Sunday 7/22, 1:15 CT

By Al Yellon
One of the few good plays from Saturday's game: St. Louis, MO. USA; Chicago Cubs third baseman Luis Valbuena dives for a bunt popped up by St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Jon Jay at Busch Stadium. Credit: Jeff Curry-US PRESSWIRE
One of the few good plays from Saturday's game: St. Louis, MO. USA; Chicago Cubs third baseman Luis Valbuena dives for a bunt popped up by St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Jon Jay at Busch Stadium. Credit: Jeff Curry-US PRESSWIRE

Besides increasing the Cubs' run differential from -58 to -70 in one day, Saturday night's 12-0 defeat wreaked havoc with the Cubs' Pythagorean winning percentage.

Before Saturday, the Cubs were 38-54 and they had a Pythagorean record of 40-52, underperforming the actual numbers by two games. Losing one game out of 93 that badly dropped that by a full win, so now they're closer to what the actual numbers indicate.

It doesn't figure to get much better Sunday afternoon. For some reason, this team simply doesn't do well on the road. Despite the winning record at home (24-21), they have a negative run differential (-6) at Wrigley Field, all of it (and more!) attributable to the 17-1 loss to the Mets on June 27. The run differential in 48 road games (14-34) is -64; the Cubs are being outscored by 1.3 runs per game away from Wrigley.

Cheery news, I know. Try to think of Ron Santo this afternoon. (He'd be saying a lot of "Aw, geez!" this year.)

Cubs lineup:

DeJesus CF, Castro SS, Rizzo 1B, Soriano LF, LaHair RF, Clevenger C, Barney 2B, Valbuena 3B, Wood P

Cardinals lineup:

Greene 2B, Craig 1B, Holliday LF, Beltran CF, Freese 3B, Jay CF, Cruz C, Descalso SS, Lynn P
Today's Starting Pitchers
Travis Wood
Travis Wood
Cubs		 vs. Lance Lynn
Lance Lynn
Cardinals
4-4 W-L 11-4
3.92 ERA 3.27
48 SO 115
26 BB 36
10 HR 10
vs. StL -- vs. Cubs
W-L G GS CG SHO SV BS IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
2012 - Travis Wood 4-4 11 11 0 0 0 0 66.2 54 30 29 10 26 48 3.92 1.20
W-L G GS CG SHO SV BS IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
2012 - Lance Lynn 11-4 18 18 0 0 0 0 110.0 97 41 40 10 36 115 3.27 1.21

Travis Wood last faced the Cardinals May 15, 2011 in Cincinnati. Look at that box and note how many Cardinals from that game aren't on the team now -- unusual for a World Series champion. Current Cardinals are a small-sample-size 15-for-35 (.429) against Wood.

Lance Lynn has already faced -- and defeated -- the Cubs twice this year, giving up just two runs in 13⅓ innings, with 12 strikeouts. Current Cubs are hitting .227 (10-for-44) against Lynn, with one home run (Bryan LaHair). Clearly, etc. etc. etc.

Today's game is on WGN.

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 Cardinals site Viva El Birdos.

Today's first pitch thread will post at 1:15 p.m. CDT and the overflows at 2:15, 3:15 and 4 p.m. CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

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