Chicago Cubs vs. San Francisco Giants Preview, Sunday 8/9, 1:20 CT

There's not much I can add to the preliminaries to this afternoon's game other than to say this Cubs team has a great chance to sweep the Giants, and to note these "lasts":

• Last time the Cubs swept the Giants: three-game series in San Francisco July 26-28, 2013
• Last time the Cubs swept the Giants at Wrigley: three-game series August 20-22, 1998
• Last time the Cubs swept the Giants in a four-game series: June 9-12, 1977 at Wrigley

Well. I think it's been too long since that's happened. Time to do it again. Weather permitting, of course.

Here are today's particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Fowler CF, Schwarber LF, Coghlan 2B, Rizzo 1B, Bryant 3B, Soler RF, Montero C, Arrieta P, Russell SS

Our Jake vs. their Jake in the finale. #LetsGo Game preview: http://t.co/suMOVadhjL pic.twitter.com/jIv11pPsco

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 9, 2015

Hey, this lineup is winning. Stick with it!

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

Today's Starting Pitchers

Jake Arrieta Cubs vs. Jake Peavy Giants vs. SF -- vs. Cubs

What more can you say about Jake Arrieta? He's been the Cubs' best pitcher all year and is coming off one of his best outings, two hits and no runs in seven innings against the Pirates. He last faced the Giants May 27, 2014 in San Francisco, which wasn't a great outing but was just shortly after he came off the DL and before he became, you know, Jake Arrieta, slayer of opposing lineups.

Jake Peavy made two early-season starts and then spent more than two months on the disabled list with back problems. He's pitched pretty well since his return (2.63 ERA in six starts since July 3). He last faced the Cubs August 20, 2014 at Wrigley Field and man, look at that lineup! That's less than a year ago and just two players in that starting lineup are even on the 25-man roster (Anthony Rizzo and Chris Coghlan). Current Cubs are 19-for-65 (.292) against Peavy with one home run (Miguel Montero).

Today's game is on CSN Chicago, and also nationally (no blackouts) on TBS.

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 Giants site McCovey Chronicles. If you do go there to interact with Giants fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

The 2015 Game Thread procedure has changed a bit. Here's how it will work going forward.

You'll find the game preview posted separately on the front page, two hours before game time (90 minutes for some early day games following night games).

At the same time, a StoryStream™ containing the preview will also post on the front page. The First Pitch Thread and all the overflow threads will be published in that stream, as well as the recap. The recap will also live on the front page as a separate post, and at the time I write the recap I will rename the stream "Cubs vs. (Team) (Day of Week) Game Threads" so you can go back and find every thread related to that particular game.

You will also be able to find the preview, First Pitch Thread, all the overflow threads and recap 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 the game's StoryStream™ as noted above.

The First Pitch thread will post at five minutes before game time, then an overflow thread at one hour, two hours and 2:45 after the scheduled game time.

Discuss amongst yourselves.