Chicago Cubs vs. Arizona Diamondbacks preview, Thursday 8/3, 1:20 CT

You will need this today:

There’s a 50 percent chance of storms today, although some forecasts have the bigger storms holding off till evening.. And the reason that’s a problem for the Cubs and Diamondbacks is this: It’s the final regular-season game Arizona plays in Chicago this year. It has meaning for both teams re: playoffs. The teams have no common off days in the time remaining this season. Thus they have three choices:

• If they have to call the game, play it in Phoenix next week. I think you can see why that’s a non-starter.
• If they have to call the game, save it and play it at the end of the season if it still has meaning for the postseason. That could work, but it crams it into a postseason schedule that could have tiebreakers and puts it at risk of weather issues again.

Or:

• Do everything they can to play this game today.

I’m pretty sure you know what the Cubs are going to decide.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Jay CF, Bryant 3B, Rizzo 1B, Contreras C, Schwarber LF, Happ 2B, Heyward RF, Baez SS, Quintana P

Diamondbacks lineup:

Blanco LF, Rosales SS, Pollock CF, Goldschmidt 1B, Martinez RF, Drury 2B, Lamb 3B, Mathis C, Greinke P

Jose Quintana vs. Zack Greinke

Joe Camporeale-USA Today Sports

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Jose Quintana has thrown well in all three of his starts for the Cubs since coming over in the big trade with the White Sox earlier this month.

You’re not going to like this next part. He faced the Diamondbacks earlier this year while with the Sox, May 24 in Phoenix, and got hit really hard: eight runs in 4⅓ innings, including a homer from Jake Lamb.

Hopefully, that was a one-off, and won’t be repeated today.

Zack Greinke has recovered from a poor 2016 season to have a good year in 2017, and almost all of his starts can be categorized at least as “good.”

He has an odd history at Wrigley Field. He’s made four starts there. The first three were, to put it mildly, disastrous: 14 innings, 18 earned runs. Those three were in 2011, 2012 and 2014, against bad Cubs teams.

When he finally faced a good Cubs team at Wrigley, June 23, 2015, he threw six shutout innings. (The Cubs won that game 1-0 in 10 innings.)

Therefore, my conclusion about Greinke pitching in Wrigley: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Today's game is on WGN.

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 Diamondbacks site AZ Snakepit. If you do go there to interact with Diamondbacks 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 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.

Get tickets to Cubs games from our partner StubHub here.

Discuss amongst yourselves.