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The Cubs wrap up their season series with the Marlins in an afternoon affair. In fact, today being getaway day for a number of teams, there are eight day games. I like that, and I know a lot of baseball fans enjoy having weekday-afternoon games to follow while they're at work, or wherever they are during the afternoon. MLB should schedule more of these!
Here's some information from last night's preview that I'm repeating here this morning, since it's still valid:
As I noted in the recap to Monday's win, it has been just about exactly one year since the Cubs won back-to-back road series. They won two of three from the Brewers in Milwaukee, then took two of three from the Mariners in Seattle from June 25-30, 2013.
Since that date, the Cubs' road record has been 31-50. They need to win today's game to have a .500 road trip. If they can accomplish that, it would be their first non-losing road trip since they went 6-4 on a trip to Colorado, Arizona and San Francisco from July 19-28, 2013.
Things are beginning to look up. A win today would be very satisfying.
Cubs lineup:
Valbuena 3B, Coghlan LF, Rizzo 1B, Castro SS, Sweeney CF, Schierholtz RF, Baker C, Barney 2B, Arrieta P
Marlins lineup:
Furcal 2B, Hechavarria SS, Stanton RF, McGehee 3B, Jones 1B, Ozuna LF, Marisnick CF, Mathis C, Eovaldi P
Today's Starting Pitchers |
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Jake Arrieta is on a 16⅔-inning scoreless streak, as he has not allowed a run in his last two starts (plus a couple of innings in the start previous). One of those games was against the Marlins, June 8 at Wrigley Field, where he allowed just three singles and struck out seven. Arrieta appears to have figured things out and maybe, just maybe, the Cubs got a real find in the Scott Feldman trade.
Nathan Eovaldi pitched against the Cubs June 6 at Wrigley Field -- 7⅔ solid innings. That's the game the Cubs won in 13 innings on Anthony Rizzo's walkoff homer. Eovaldi walked one and struck out eight, and control and command is his game. He has walked only 16 in 87⅓ innings this year, so the Cubs will have to watch for good pitches in the zone today.
Given these two pitchers' records and the quick turnaround from night game to day game, I'd expect this afternoon's contest to be low-scoring.
Today's game is on CSN Chicago. In some parts of the USA this game will be available on MLB Network.
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Marlins site FishStripes.
For 2014, we are going to have the same game-thread routine as 2013. Here's how it works.
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.