Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals preview, Thursday 4/19, 1:20 CT

The last time the Cubs had four games postponed in a single homestand before now was 1966, when games on May 9 (Cardinals), May 11 (Cardinals), May 13 (Reds) and May 17 (Astros) were postponed for reasons varying from cold weather to rain to snow. The May 17 Astros game was made up as part of a doubleheader May 18; the others in July and September. (In fact, I wrote about that May 18, 1966 doubleheader in the Game From Cubs History series here in January 2013.)

As you can see here, that period of a week or so in May 1966 was unusually cold and wet, with snow on May 9.

Additionally, that was a different era, when there wasn’t nearly as much money involved as there is now and teams were much more willing to call off games and play doubleheaders, as the thought back in the 1960s was that “two games for the price of one” was a draw. In some cases, that actually worked.

As I have noted elsewhere, the 1966 Cubs played 20 doubleheaders; nine of them were created via makeups from postponements.

Here is my fervent hope that the 2018 Cubs have no more postponements the rest of this season.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Cardinals lineup:

Jon Lester, LHP vs. Luke Weaver, RHP

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Jon Lester has made three starts this year. We have one good one, one mediocre and one bad. So that doesn’t tell us much.

Last year against the Cardinals: five starts, 2.93 ERA, 1.239 WHIP. That’s pretty good, especially since overall Jon wasn’t great in 2017. Career vs. Cardinals: 14 starts, 2.30 ERA, 1.078 WHIP. Those are his best numbers against any N.L. team against whom he has more than 10 starts.

So that’s good! Current Cardinals are hitting .245 (37-for-151) against Jon with six home runs. Jedd Gyorko (6-for-19, two HR) and Yadier Molina (12-for-35, .343) hit him pretty well.

Luke Weaver is 24 and finally getting a full shot at the Cardinals rotation after two years up and down from their system. He’s started out well: 2.08 ERA, 0.981 WHIP in three starts.

Against the Cubs, though, he has not had much luck. He made his MLB debut against the Cubs August 13, 2016 and the Cubs scored a pair in four innings off him, though the Cardinals won that game.

Last year, Cubs hitters pounded him for eight runs in three innings on September 25, including homers by Kris Bryant and Javier Baez. More of that, please.

Today’s game is on ABC7 Chicago. It’s also on MLB Network (outside the Chicago and St. Louis 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 2018 Game Thread procedure will be the same as the one used during 2017. 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.

Discuss amongst yourselves.