Cubs vs. Cardinals Preview, Friday 8/16, 3:05 CT: The Jake Arrieta Era Begins

Jake Arrieta is, apparently, going to be in the Cubs' rotation the rest of this season. That should give him approximately eight more starts to show the brass what he can do for 2014 and beyond. I hope he succeeds; that would make the Scott Feldman signing/trade one of Theo & Jed's best. More on Arrieta below. And FWIW, here's the roster move (pretty obvious it would be this) to make room for Arrieta:

Arrieta added to #Cubs roster, Sanchez optioned

— Carrie Muskat (@CarrieMuskat) August 16, 2013

The Cubs and Cardinals will be "Jake-ing it" this afternoon, as that is the first name of both starting pitchers. (Sorry.)

Now, let's talk Cubs/Cardinals and the awful (23-36) home record of the Cubs so far this year. Bruce Miles has details about the 2013 Cubs' home record, which could wind up being the worst in the history of the franchise. No Cubs team has ever lost 50 games in a home season, but this year's edition could come close, unless they start winning home games now, and often.

The 2013 Cubs have done reasonably well vs. the Cardinals at home -- 3-3 so far -- and overall, 6-7. In fact, the Cubs have also done fairly well vs. the first-place Pirates with a 5-7 mark. It's against the Brewers and Reds where most of the in-division deficit has been piled up; the Cubs are a combined 7-21 against those two teams. That's almost the entire deficit to the .500 mark for this year's Cubs, who are 45-47 against teams not named Reds or Brewers.

Cubs lineup:

DeJesus CF, Lake LF, Rizzo 1B, Schierholtz RF, Castillo C, Murphy 3B, Castro SS, Barney 2B, Arrieta P

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

Today's Starting Pitchers

Jake Arrieta Cubs vs. Jake Westbrook Cardinals vs. StL -- vs. Cubs

Jake Arrieta's only Cubs start was in the second game of the doubleheader against the Brewers, July 30 at Wrigley Field. He threw six really nice innings, giving up just one run, though it was against a not-very-frightening lineup. Arrieta has never faced the Cardinals nor anyone on their roster. This works well for other teams' pitchers against the Cubs; why not us?

Arrieta's numbers above reflect his entire season, including his five starts with the Orioles.

Jake Westbrook has made three starts against the Cubs this year, covering 19⅓ innings. He's allowed six earned runs and no home runs to Cubs hitters, who are 40-for-139 (.288) against him with two home runs (David DeJesus, Donnie Murphy). Maybe there's a chance after all.

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 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.