Chicago Cubs vs. Pittsburgh Pirates preview, Thursday 9/7, 6:05 CT

Some additional notes about Wednesday’s 1-0 win:

• It marks the first time the Cubs have won two 1-0 games in Pittsburgh in the same season in 111 years, as Chicago swept a doubleheader with a pair of 1-0 victories on July 4, 1906 at Exposition Park. That’s three Pittsburgh stadiums ago!
• The Cubs have now won a pair of 1-0 games in the same ballpark in the same season for only the third time in the last 40 years, joining a pair of 1-0 wins in San Diego in 2010 and a pair of 1-0 wins in Houston in 2006.
• And, this is the first time the Cubs have won a pair of 1-0 games featuring the same opposing starting pitcher (Gerrit Cole) in his home ballpark within the same season in at least 105 seasons starting in 1913.
• Lastly, it marks the first time Cubs have won a pair of 1-0 games started by the same pitcher in the same season, home or road, since 1973 when the Cubs defeated Jon Matlack of the Mets, April 18, 1973 at Shea Stadium and then defeated him again, 1-0, on September 30, 1973 at Wrigley Field.

How about making it three times in one season tonight?

One more non 1-0 note:

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

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

Pirates lineup:

Marte LF, Moroff 2B, McCutchen CF, Bell 1B, Luplow RF, Rodriguez 3B, Diaz C, Mercer SS, Taillon P

Jon Lester vs. Jameson Taillon

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Jon Lester struggled a bit in his first start back from the disabled list last Saturday vs. the Braves. He allowed eight hits and four runs in five innings and his velocity appeared to drop as the game went on. Hopefully that’s not repeated tonight.

Jon has one good outing and two awful ones against the Pirates this year, thus his overall 2017 numbers are pretty bad against them: 6.08 ERA, 1.954 WHIP, four home runs in 13⅓ innings.

We hope for better things tonight.

Jameson Taillon has made two starts against the Cubs this year, one good, the other, not so much. Since the All-Star break he’s been more or less awful: 10 starts, 6.75 ERA, 1.723 WHIP, though he did throw six shutout innings vs. the Reds in his last outing.

Like a lot of the Pirates starters, Taillon seems to be running on fumes recently.

Today's game is on CSN Chicago. It’s also on MLB Network outside the Chicago and Pittsburgh markets.

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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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.