Cubs vs. Cardinals Preview, Tuesday 5/7, 7:05 CT: A Quick Rivalry Visit

Hello, Cardinals. And less than 24 hours after this one begins, it'll be "goodbye, Cardinals", at least until the teams meet in St. Louis in mid-June. Perhaps MLB will fix these odd little two-game schedules next year. (I wouldn't hold my breath waiting, though.)

Unlike their record against the Reds, who just left town with yet another sweep, the Cubs have played the Cardinals pretty evenly the last three years: 21 Cubs wins, 26 Cardinals wins. That breaks down this way:

2O1O: Cubs 9, Cardinals 6
2O11: Cardinals 1O, Cubs 5
2O12: Cardinals 1O, Cubs 7

If only the Cubs could have won either of the last two 2011 games -- both blown saves by Carlos Marmol -- that entire 2011 postseason would have been different. (Sigh.)

The Cardinals come to Wrigley in first place in the N.L. Central and riding a six-game winning streak. You don't really expect those things to change by Wednesday afternoon, do you?

ICYMI, and this has not yet been confirmed by the team, there's a rumor that Carlos Zambrano is going to be playing indy league ball:

Source: Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League sign RHP Carlos Zambrano. He joins Dontrelle Willis, Vlad Guerrero.

— Chris Cotillo (@TradeDeadliner) May 7, 2013

Cubs lineup:

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

The Cardinals lineup was not available at the time I wrote this post. Check the BCB Twitter feed for the Cardinals lineup.

Today's Starting Pitchers

Travis Wood Cubs vs. Lance Lynn Cardinals vs. StL -- vs. Cubs

Travis Wood faced the Cardinals three times last year and you don't want to know. Seriously, you don't. Let's instead focus on this year, when Wood has been consistently good. He's gone at least six innings in all six of his starts, and his 0.908 WHIP ranks fifth in the league -- just behind Clayton Kershaw. This is to try to make you ignore the fact that current Cardinals are hitting .358 (29-for-81) against Wood with seven home runs. (Told you not to look. Should have taken my own advice.)

Lance Lynn is doing exactly what he did last year -- get off to a hot start. He cooled off and had a decent, but not great, 2012. So far this year he's been one of the better pitchers in the National League, and he has allowed just two earned runs over 21 innings in his last three starts. Current Cubs are hitting .243 (17-for-70) against him with one home run (Anthony Rizzo). Sounds doom-ish to me.

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.

Here's the scoop on game threads for 2013. You'll find the game preview -- like this one -- posting as the first link in the StoryStream™, which will then contain all the overflow threads and the recap. The recap will also be on the front page as a separate post; once I post a game recap, the stream for each game will be retitled "Cubs vs. (Team) (Day of Week) Game Threads" so you can go back and find every thread related to that particular game.

In general, game previews will post two hours before game time. Exception: for day games after night games, that will usually be 90 minutes.

You will also be able to find the First Pitch Thread and all the overflow threads in the box marked "Chicago Cubs Game Threads" at the bottom of the front page (you can also find them in this section link). They will also appear in this StoryStream™. As I've done for each regular-season game for several years now, we'll have the First Pitch thread at five minutes before game time (moved up from actual game time per your requests), then an overflow one hour, two hours and 2:45 after game time.

Discuss amongst yourselves.