Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals preview, Friday 7/27, 7:15 CT

Notes for Friday:

• Anthony Rizzo since moving to the leadoff spot: .442/.545/.674 (19-for-43) with five doubles, a triple, a home run and nine walks. The Cubs are 8-4 in the 12 games he’s led off, and he’ll be in that spot tonight.
• Rizzo’s walkoff homer was his 178th as a Cub. His next long ball will tie him with Derrek Lee for 12th on the Cubs’ all-time homer list.
• The Cubs were down 6-1 through four and a half innings Thursday and came back to win. ESPN Stats & Info points out that the Cubs have now overcome a five-run deficit to record a win three times this season, the most for any N.L. club.
• Just-acquired Cole Hamels, when he makes his first appearance, will be the sixth former Ranger to play for the Cubs this year. The others: Anthony Bass, Jesse Chavez, Yu Darvish, Chris Gimenez and Pedro Strop. Also, Kyle Hendricks and Carl Edwards Jr. came to the Cubs from the Rangers farm system.
• This series is the last regular-season set the Cubs will play this year in Busch Stadium. It’s just the fifth time in the last 24 seasons (also 2001, 2004, 2012, 2014) that the Cubs won’t play in St. Louis in September.

More on Hamels:

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Cardinals lineup:

Mike Montgomery, LHP vs. Luke Weaver, RHP

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Mike Montgomery threw six strong innings against the Cardinals in the second game of the doubleheader last Saturday. Here’s hoping he does that again, and that this time the bullpen doesn’t blow the lead, as they did in that game.

Montgomery is going on five days’ rest for this start. He seems to do better when he has more rest, so hopefully that’s a good sign.

In the first game of that Saturday doubleheader, the Cubs hit Luke Weaver pretty hard: seven hits and five walks in four innings. Like Montgomery, Weaver is also going on five days’ rest, but that wasn’t the first time Cubs hitters pounded Weaver this year. In three starts against the Cubs this year, Weaver has a 9.75 ERA and 2.417 (!) WHIP.

More of that, please.

Today’s game is on NBC Sports 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

Please visit our SB Nation Cardinals site Viva el Birdos. If you do go there to interact with Cardinals 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 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.