Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds preview, Wednesday 8/23, 6:10 CT

Tuesday’s win was the 35th time the Cubs have come from behind to win this year, second-best in the National League. If you think that’s not a good thing, think again: The team they trail is the Dodgers, who have done it 41 times.

Other notes for tonight:

• The Cubs drew nine walks Tuesday night. That gives them walks in 27 straight games and in 108 of the 124 games this year.
• This season, the Cubs rank second in the N.L. and third in the majors with 467 free passes. This puts them on pace for 610 walks, which would be sixth-most in franchise history.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Jay CF, Schwarber LF, Zobrist 2B, Rizzo 1B, Avila C, La Stella 3B, Heyward RF, Baez SS, Montgomery P

As expected, Kris Bryant is getting the day off.

Reds lineup:

Hamilton CF, Cozart SS, Votto 1B, Duvall LF, Suarez 3B, Schebler RF, Peraza 2B, Turner C, Wojciechowski P

Mike Montgomery vs. Asher Wojciechowski

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Reinhold Matay-USA Today Sports

This concerns me:

Mike Montgomery as a starter this year: eight starts, 5.13 ERA, 1.339 WHIP, five home runs in 40⅓ innings.

Mike Montgomery as a reliever this year: 27 appearances, 2.57 ERA, 1.268 WHIP, three home runs in 56 innings.

It’s clear, at least this year, that MiMo is much better in relief. Hopefully, he can give the Cubs five decent innings tonight. His one start vs. the Reds this year, June 30 at GABP, wasn’t too bad: 6⅔ innings, nine hits, four runs, seven strikeouts. If he can match that, hopefully the Cubs offense can make up the difference.

Montgomery tonight becomes just the third N.L. pitcher in the last 10 seasons to make at least nine starts while also recording at least three saves in the same season. The others: Hisanori Takahashi of the Mets in 2010 (12 starts, 8 saves) and Cubs lefty Travis Wood (9 starts, 4 saves) in 2015.

The Cubs scored a whole bunch of runs off Asher Wojciechowski August 14 at Wrigley Field. Seven of them, to be exact, in 3⅔ innings, including home runs by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. Wojciechowski has made one relief appearance since then, four days ago against the Braves, and he allowed four hits and two runs in two innings.

Hopefully, the Cubs can keep up the pounding.

Today's game is on CSN 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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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.

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