Chicago Cubs vs. Milwaukee Brewers preview, Sunday 5/12, 6:05 CT

The weather forecast for tonight is again pretty nasty, even if the rain holds off it'll be cold and raw. As they did on Saturday, though, they will probably play through it unless there’s a torrential downpour or lightning, neither of which seems likely.

As such, you should keep this handy this evening.

Notes for tonight:

• The Cubs have managed to (for the most part) stop Christian Yelich so far this year. He’s 5-for-20 against the Cubs with one home run and five walks. Against Jon Lester in his career, he’s 3-for-9 with no homers and four strikeouts.
• Willson Contreras’ walkoff homer was his first-ever walkoff RBI. He’s hit safely in 10 straight games (.366/15-for-41), his longest single-season streak and tied for the longest overall hitting streak of his career, previously September 28, 2016 through April 13, 2017. Willson’s homer was the first walkoff homer by a Cub in the 15th inning or later since Sammy Sosa’s in the 15th inning, September 2, 2003 (first game) vs. the Cardinals.
• Kris Bryant has reached base in a career-high tying 21 straight games. This is the longest streak by a Cub since Ben Zobrist’s 25-game stretch, April 28-May 30, 2017. KB has a .438 OBP during this span.
• Javier Baez has hit safely in 10 straight games (.357/15-for-42), one shy of his career-best 11-game hitting streak from April 14-28, 2018.
• The Cubs are 3-0 in extra-inning games this season and have won six straight extra-inning games dating to last season, their longest streak since winning six straight extra-inning games from April 19-May 31, 2003.
• The Cubs allowed four or fewer hits in a game of at least 15 innings for the first time since June 14, 1952 at the Boston Braves (15 innings, four hits).

Today, for Mother’s Day, teams will be wearing special caps (and if players choose, socks). Here’s the Cubs cap and the socks:

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Brewers lineup:

Jon Lester, LHP vs. Jhoulys Chacin, RHP

Jon Lester has been solid all year, but especially good over his three starts since returning from a hamstring issue: 0.50 ERA, 0.778 WHIP, just one walk and one earned run allowed in 18 innings.

He has not faced the Brewers this year. Last year he made two starts against them and posted a 2.31 ERA in 11⅔ innings with 13 strikeouts and no home runs allowed.

Current Brewers are hitting .302 (32-for-106) against Jon, but with no home runs and 28 strikeouts.

Jhoulys Chacin’s season ERA of 5.03 looks pretty bad, but his last two starts (1.64 ERA in 11 innings) have been somewhat better. His walk rate and strikeout rate are both worse than they were last year, so perhaps the Cubs can take advantage of the wildness.

Chacin has not faced the Cubs this year. He made five starts against them in 2018, including the tiebreaker game at Wrigley Field. In 2018 he posted a 1.59 ERA and 0.882 WHIP against the Cubs. Current Cubs are hitting .202 (21-for-104) against him. Anthony Rizzo, though, is 7-for-22 (.318) with three home runs.

As noted above, it’s going to be another raw, cold, damp night at Wrigley. Expect another low-scoring affair.

Today’s game is on ESPN.

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 Brewers site Brew Crew Ball. If you do go there to interact with Brewers 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 2019 Game Thread procedure will be the same as the one used in previous years. 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.