Chicago Cubs vs. Colorado Rockies preview, Saturday 6/10, 1:20 CT

ICYMI late Friday night, the Brewers beat the Diamondbacks 8-6, so the Cubs begin today's action two games out of first place.

For as mediocre as the Cubs have been over this season's first 60 games, that's not anything near an insurmountable deficit. We know this team has talent; at times they've shown it. I still expect them to run off a long winning streak sometime soon.

Today would be a good day to start that.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Schwarber LF, Bryant 3B, Rizzo 1B, Zobrist 2B, Heyward RF, Almora CF, Contreras C, Russell SS, Butler P

Here is this afternoon's #Cubs lineup vs. Colorado.

Game preview: https://t.co/FntY8foFCQ pic.twitter.com/Zaz7Nc3qxt

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 10, 2017

Rockies lineup:

Blackmon CF, LeMahieu 2B, Arenado 3B, Reynolds 1B, Desmond LF, Amarista SS, Tapia RF, Wolters C, Hoffman P

Eddie Butler vs. Jeff Hoffman

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

This afternoon, Eddie Butler gets his first chance to show his old team that they made a mistake in getting rid of him. Butler had an excellent outing on Monday, allowing just three hits, a walk and one run to the Marlins in 5⅔ innings. His five starts have included three pretty good ones and two bad ones. He's clearly got talent; let's hope it shows here today. He's obviously never faced the Rockies and the only member of the Rockies he has faced is Ian Desmond (1-for-2).

Jeff Hoffman was the No. 1 choice of the Blue Jays in the 2014 draft and came to the Rockies in the Troy Tulowitzki deal. He made his major-league debut last year and will be making his 10th big-league start this afternoon. One of those previous starts was against the Cubs August 20, 2016 at Coors Field, and they hit him pretty hard: seven hits and seven runs in four innings. Kris Bryant homered off him. He also had a relief appearance earlier this year against the Cubs. Bryant homered off him in that one, too.

Today's game is on ABC7 Chicago.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

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The 2017 Game Thread procedure will be the same as the one used during 2016. 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.

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Discuss amongst yourselves.