Chicago Cubs vs. Washington Nationals Preview, Friday 5/6, 1:20 CT

The Cubs have won three straight games vs. the Nationals and five of the last seven played between the two teams, dating back to last year.

Basically, I don't know how many more superlatives I can write about this team. They're still doing things that haven't been done in more than a century. If the Cubs win this one, it will be their second five-game winning streak of this year, and of course you know they still haven't lost two games in a row.

That's probably going to happen at some point... so let's enjoy this ride while it's here.

Here are today's particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Fowler CF, Heyward RF, Bryant LF, Rizzo 1B, Zobrist 2B, La Stella 3B, Baez SS, Ross C, Lackey P

Lackey vs. Scherzer. #LetsGo

Game preview: https://t.co/uY6lbA09lK pic.twitter.com/jkS0gua6uZ

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 6, 2016

Addison Russell gets a day off.

Nationals lineup:

Revere CF, Rendon 3B, Harper RF, Zimmerman 1B, Murphy 2B, Werth LF, Ramos C, Espinosa SS, Scherzer P

After a rough start, John Lackey had an excellent outing against the Braves last Sunday. Last year against the Nats, he had one good start and one bad one, totaling 11⅔ innings with six earned runs allowed. The one Nats player who has hit him well: Jayson Werth (7-for-14, four doubles, a home run). He's handled Bryce Harper all right in a small sample size: 0-for-4, two walks.

Last year, Max Scherzer made one start against the Cubs, May 27 at Wrigley Field. Suffice to say the Cubs didn't do well -- just five hits and no runs in seven innings, and Scherzer struck out 13. This year, Scherzer isn't doing quite so well, though he did shut out the Cardinals for seven innings in his last outing. Current Cubs are hitting .258 (17-for-66) against Scherzer with one home run (Ben Zobrist).

Today's game is on CSN Chicago. Outside the Chicago and Washington markets this game will be available nationally on MLB Network.

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 Nationals site Federal Baseball. If you do go there to interact with Nationals 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 2016 Game Thread procedure will be the same as the one used at the end of 2015. Here's how it works.

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.