:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/19956693/181474872.0.jpg)
The Marlins and Nationals were rained out Saturday in Washington, leaving the Braves' magic number to clinch the National League East at 1.
Washington and Miami will play a split doubleheader today; the first game will be at 12:35 CT, the second at 6:05 CT. Thus, their early game is likely to end before the Cubs and Braves complete their game at Wrigley. If the Marlins beat the Nats in Game 1, the Braves will have thus clinched; I'd almost prefer Washington to win their early game and the Cubs to defeat the Braves, thus making Atlanta win their division some other way than on the field at Wrigley.
The Cubs played well Saturday. A repeat of that would be nice. Let's see if this team can end the season on an up note.
Cubs lineup:
Castro SS, Valbuena 3B, Rizzo 1B, Navarro C, Schierholtz RF, Bogusevic CF, Lake LF, Barney 2B, Jackson P
The Braves lineup was not available at the time I wrote this post. Please check the BCB Twitter feed for the Braves lineup.
Today's Starting Pitchers |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As I have written before about Edwin Jackson, I really have no idea how he'll do this afternoon. His performance has been so erratic this season that it's really anyone's guess. He's had some very, very good starts and some awful ones and although he's posted a reasonable 4.21 ERA since the All-Star break ("reasonable", I suppose, compared to 5.11 before the break), it really doesn't seem like he's pitched well at all the last two months.
Julio Teheran's only career start against the Cubs was April 6 in Atlanta. You really don't want to look at that boxscore; I'll just tell you that the Cubs hit Teheran pretty well (five runs in five innings), including home runs by Luis Valbuena and Anthony Rizzo. Suffice to say the Cubs didn't win that game. Perhaps they can hit as well today as they did that day, and pitch better.
Today's game is on WGN.
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Braves site Talking Chop.
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.