Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals preview, Tuesday 7/30, 7:15 CT

News of the day links!

Pedro Strop to IL, Duane Underwood Jr. recalled: Here

RHP David Phelps acquired from Blue Jays: Here

The Cubs scored 11 runs Sunday, but in their previous six games (of which they lost five), they scored just 18 total runs. Nevertheless, there are some Cubs hitters who are hot right now.

• Anthony Rizzo, last 18 games: .369/.455/.600 (24-for-65) with seven doubles, a triple, two home runs, 15 RBI, 12 runs
• Kris Bryant, last 18 games: .333/.425/.638 (23-for-69) with six doubles, five home runs and 16 runs
• Kyle Schwarber, last 14 games: .256/.319/.721 (11-for-43) with two doubles, six home runs and 11 RBI

Now, just get the rest of the offense going and the Cubs could go on a long winning streak. How about starting tonight?

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Cardinals lineup:

Yu Darvish, RHP vs. Adam Wainwright, RHP

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Yu Darvish has made two starts against the Cardinals this year. He got hit pretty hard May 4 at Wrigley Field, but threw six strong innings May 31 in St. Louis.

Darvish has been much more like the May 31 pitcher than the May 4 pitcher since then. He got cuffed around a bit in his last start seven days ago in San Francisco, but in general since early June has been the pitcher the Cubs thought they were getting when they signed him.

Only two current Cardinals have more than a handful of at-bats against him: Paul Goldschmidt (1-for-12, eight strikeouts) and Marcell Ozuna (4-for-12). Goldschmidt has been hot lately, so that’s an encouraging sign, I think.

Adam Wainwright just keeps on going. Tonight will be his 40th career start against the Cubs. Only six pitchers (Steve Carlton, Bob Forsch, Phil Niekro, Steve Rogers, Tom Seaver and Jerry Reuss) have made more against the Cubs in the divisional play era (since 1969).

The most recent of the previous 39 was June 2 in St. Louis, where Wainwright threw eight shutout innings, allowing just two hits. (That was after the previous night’s game had a long rain delay and ended after midnight; Cole Hamels also threw very well that afternoon.)

Since then, Wainwright has a 5.15 ERA and 1.445 WHIP in seven starts, only one of which can be characterized as “good.” The Cubs also pounded him pretty hard May 5 at Wrigley Field (six runs in five innings), though in general Wainwright has been much better at home this year (2.33 ERA, nine starts) than on the road (7.16 ERA, 10 starts). On the other hand, he’s been markedly worse in night games (14 starts, 5.88 ERA) than day games (1.74 ERA, five starts).

In short, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Today’s game is on NBC Sports Chicago. It’s also on MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Cardinals market territories).

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 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.