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Here's a fun little story apropos of nothing.
It was noted here earlier this year that the Cubs had another pitcher a while back whose name was pronounced "Jon Lester."
His name was Jon Leicester, but the last name was pronounced "Lester." He had a decent year or so in the Cubs' bullpen, and eventually was traded to the Rangers for no one you've ever heard of.
The reason I mention this is because I found one game in which both Jon Lester and Jon Leicester pitched. It happened September 2, 2007 at Fenway Park, when Lester was in his first full big-league season and Leicester playing out the string with the Orioles.
Lester threw six innings and gave up two runs and posted the win in a 3-2 Boston victory.
Leicester threw 1⅓ innings of scoreless relief.
Like I said, pretty meaningless, but with Lester throwing today for the Cubs, I thought you'd like to know.
A reminder that I'm in San Francisco. I've decided to go to the Giants game this afternoon, which starts at 3:05 CT. This means that if today's Cubs game is played -- and the weather forecast doesn't look good -- the recap will likely be delayed until early evening.
Here are today's particulars.
Cubs lineup:
Fowler CF, Soler RF, Rizzo 1B, Bryant 3B, Castro SS, Coghlan LF, Ross C, Lester P, Herrera 2B
Here is the official Cubs cool-looking lineup tweet:
.@JLester34 on the mound, #LetsGo win the series! #NVRQT Preview: http://t.co/Rl8o3yjMRm pic.twitter.com/SqlLveAIfT
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) April 19, 2015
Padres lineup:
Myers CF, Solarte 1B, Kemp RF, Norris C, Middlebrooks 3B, Gyorko 2B, Venable LF, Barmes SS, Cashner P
Today's Starting Pitchers |
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We're going to have a lot of this for a while this year. Jon Lester has faced the Padres only once, July 3, 2013 at Fenway Park. To show how completely the Padres have been made over, there are as many Padres from that game on this year's Cubs as on this year's Padres (one -- Chris Denorfia, while Alexi Amarista is the only Padre left).
The only active member of the Padres who has any significant success against Lester is Justin Upton (5-for-7, two home runs). Stay away from him and the rest of the Padres are 4-for-26 against Lester. It's about time Lester had a solid start after two shaky ones.
Andrew Cashner is off to a rather rough start this year (4.09 ERA, 1.727 WHIP, three home runs in 11 innings). The last time he faced the Cubs was August 25, 2013, and I post the link to that ridiculous game in which the Cubs blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the 13th with two out and a runner on and then failed to score with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the 15th in order to show you how far this team has come in less than two years.
Current Cubs are a small-sample-size 16-for-54 (.296) against Cashner, and most of that is from former N.L. West opponents Dexter Fowler and Miguel Montero, who have combined to go 8-for-28 (.286) with two home runs and five walks. Both seem like hot hitters right now; perhaps they can continue that.
Today's game is on WGN. For coverage info in other Midwest markets click here (link opens .pdf).
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Padres site Gaslamp Ball. The usual caution is advised.
Once again for 2015, we are going to have the same game-thread routine as the last couple of years. 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 most 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.