Chicago Cubs vs. San Francisco Giants preview, Tuesday 8/8, 9:15 CT

Happy birthday, Anthony Rizzo! The Cubs first baseman turns 28 today.

Rizzo’s 159 home runs as a Cub rank 14th in team history. Next up: Andre Dawson with 174.

As for the Cubs, they are on a roll on the road, having won 12 of their last 13 road games (the only loss was one in Milwaukee), and they’ve outscored their opponents 76-33 in those games.

And, having defeated a lefthanded starter in Monday’s series opener, the Cubs are now 19-7 against LH starters this year... and they’ll face two more in this series.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

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

Giants lineup:

Hernandez CF, Gomez 2B, Pence RF, Posey 1B, Hundley C, Crawford SS, Parker LF, Tomlinson 3B, Blach P

Jose Quintana vs. Ty Blach

Joe Camporeale-USA Today Sports

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Jose Quintana had a rough outing his last time out against the Diamondbacks, which ended a 10-start stretch in which he had posted a 2.59 ERA and 1.102 WHIP. Hopefully that was a one-off and he can get back on track tonight.

Jose has faced the Giants just once in his career, three years ago on August 13, 2014. He threw 6⅔ innings and allowed four hits and four runs. Hopefully tonight will be better.

(Is that hopeful enough?)

Ty Blach started and won the only game the Giants have taken from the Cubs this year, May 22 at Wrigley Field. He threw seven innings that day and gave up eight hits, but only three runs.

Later in June he had a six-start stretch where he posted a 6.95 ERA and 1.723 WHIP. But his last two starts have been pretty good. He hit a home run off somebody named Chris Smith in his last outing, last Thursday against the A’s. I do not expect that to be repeated.

Today's game is on CSN Chicago. It’s also on MLB Network (outside the Chicago and San Francisco markets).

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.