Chicago Cubs vs. New York Mets preview, Wednesday 9/13, 7:05 CT

Wednesday game notes!

• The Cubs’ three home runs Tuesday gave them 202 for the season. That ranks third in the National League behind the Brewers (203) and Mets (209). It should be noted that 132 of those Mets homers were hit either by players no longer on the team (including eight by current Cub Rene Rivera), or currently on the disabled list.
• The Cubs’ total of 202 home runs ranks fourth in franchise history, with 18 games remaining. Totals higher: 209 in 1987, 212 in 1998 and 235 in 2004. The franchise record is probably out of reach, but this year’s team could easily wind up with 213 or more to be second-best.

So, let’s hope the team gets going on this with more home runs tonight!

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

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

Mets lineup:

Reyes 2B, Aoki LF, Cabrera 3B, Plawecki C, Lagares CF, Rosario SS, Taijeron RF, Reynolds 1B, Harvey P

Jon Lester vs. Matt Harvey

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Jon Lester had a rough outing in his first start back from the DL, but his second one, last Thursday against the Pirates, was much better: six innings, five hits, one run. His start against the Mets earlier this year, June 13 at Citi Field, was even better than that: seven innings, five hits, one run, 10 strikeouts.

I’ll take another one of those tonight, please. The Cubs are going to need Lester to be ace-like down the stretch.

Matt Harvey, coming off yet another injury, is having the worst year of his career. This year’s injury, to his scapula, kept him out for two months. He has made two starts since his return, one (vs. the Reds) decent, the other (vs. the Astros) awful.

The last start he made before going on the DL was against the Cubs, June 14 at Citi Field, and you could tell something was wrong with him then. The Cubs were just pounding him, including a 467-foot home run by Kyle Schwarber. Anthony Rizzo and Ian Happ also homered off him that night.

Here’s hoping for more Cubs homers off Harvey tonight.

Today’s game is on WGN.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday (classic mode) (Note: Going forward, I am going to link to the “classic” Gameday here because MLB.com broke the links I used to use to get to their “new” Gameday. If you click on this link, you can then click on “New Gameday” at the bottom of the page to get to the updated version. Note that the “classic” Gameday won’t load until just before game time.)

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

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