Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals Preview, Wednesday 4/8, 1:20 CT

With this series abbreviated to two games via last night's postponement, the Cubs at best will go on the road to Colorado at .500. That would still be an improvement over 2014, when they dropped the first two games of the season, both in extra innings.

The rainout has allowed Joe Maddon to readjust his starting rotation. Jake Arrieta gets pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday, but Jason Hammel, who was originally going to start today's game, won't go until Saturday. That makes the rotation order:

Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, Travis Wood, Jason Hammel, Kyle Hendricks

That splits up the two lefties in the rotation, as Maddon prefers. Interestingly, this means Lester won't pitch in Colorado this year. Lester has made one regular-season and one World Series start in Coors Field, totaling 11⅔ innings with just one run allowed. Instead, Lester will start the first game of the next homestand, Monday against the Reds.

Here are today's particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Fowler CF, Soler RF, Rizzo 1B, Castro SS, Coghlan LF, Montero C, Alcantara 2B, Arrieta P, La Stella 3B

Cardinals lineup:

Carpenter 3B, Heyward RF, Holliday LF, Adams 1B, Peralta SS, Jay CF, Molina C, Wong 2B, Lynn P

Today's Starting Pitchers

Jake Arrieta Cubs vs. Lance Lynn Cardinals vs. StL -- vs. Cubs

Jake Arrieta started the final Wrigley game of 2014, which was against the Cardinals September 24. He allowed two hits in seven innings, just one run, and struck out 10. A continuation of that would be appreciated. Current Cardinals are 18-for-90 (.200) against Jake.

Lance Lynn looks sad in that photo. Let's keep him that way. Lynn faced the Cubs just once in 2014, May 4 at Wrigley Field. Look at that lineup -- only two of the eight position players who started that day are still on the team (Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro). Tremendous turnover in less than a year. Current Cubs are hitting .307 (23-for-75) against Lynn.

Today's game is on ABC7 Chicago, their first of 24 broadcasts this year. For coverage info in other Midwest markets click here (link opens .pdf).

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.

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.