Chicago Cubs vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Preview, Saturday 9/15, 12:05 CT

There isn't much to tell about this year's Cubs, so here's a story about an event seven years ago today, September 15, 2005.

The Cardinals were in Wrigley Field to face the Cubs, who had been eliminated from playoff contention. Meanwhile, a St. Louis win would wrap up the NL Central for the Cards. St. Louis went into the bottom of the ninth leading 6-0. Derrek Lee led off the inning with a home run off Jeff Suppan. Tony La Russa brought in a reliever, Alberto Reyes. There was a popout, a single and a strikeout. The Cardinals were one out from a division clinching. It had been raining lightly.

And then it started to rain harder. Much harder. Neifi Perez walked. (Yes, really.) It was pouring rain when Henry Blanco hit a foul popup that Yadier Molina dropped, likely because he couldn't see with all the water in his face. Blanco then hit a ground ball to shortstop David Eckstein. Easy, right? No, because everything was so wet, Blanco was safe, loading the bases,

That's when the umpires finally gave up and stopped the game. The Cardinals won 6-1, but had to celebrate in the clubhouse instead of on Wrigley Field when the game was called after about an hour's rain delay.

Neither lineup was available at the time I wrote this post. Check the BCB Twitter feed for today's lineups.

Today's Starting Pitchers

Jason Berken Cubs vs. Wandy Rodriguez Astros making W-L 10-13 his ERA 3.72 2012 SO 122 MLB BB 50 debut HR 18 vs. Pit -- vs. Cubs

NOTE: Rodriguez' stats above are with the Pirates only; the numbers in the pitcher box are his full-season numbers. There was no headshot available with Wandy in a Pirates uniform.

Jason Berken. You could have made a lot of money betting, back in April, that Jason Berken would be in the Cubs' rotation in September 2012. Jason Berken. I have very little idea what to say about Jason Berken. Jason Berken has one career relief appearance against the Pirates, June 20, 2011 in Pittsburgh. He struck out three Pirates, some of whom are even still on the team. Jason Berken had a 3.50 ERA and 1.382 WHIP for Triple-A Norfolk this year. And now you know pretty much all there is to know about Jason Berken. (He looks kind of sad in that photo, too.)

Wandy Rodriguez is a familiar face -- 21 career starts vs. the Cubs with a 3.84 ERA, a bit lower than his overall ERA of 4.02. He's started twice against the Cubs this year, allowing four runs in 14 innings. Current Cubs are hitting just .173 (18-for-104) against him, with just one home run (Alfonso Soriano). So I think you can put this one on the "doomed" list.

Today's game is on CSN Chicago.

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 Pirates site Bucs Dugout.

Today's first pitch thread will post at 12:05 p.m. CDT and the overflows at 1:05, 2:05 and 2:50 p.m. CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section. Also please note: due to some under-the-hood changes, the sidebar box with the game thread links is no longer available. It seems you've found them with no problems, but if you haven't been able to find the overflow threads, click the "Chicago Cubs Game Threads" link under "Sections" on the left sidebar. They're all in there.

Discuss amongst yourselves.