Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox exhibition game preview, Sunday 7/19, 7:05 CT

Well, here we are. A baseball game, between the Cubs and another team. Haven’t seen one of those since March, when the Cubs were still in Mesa and the world seemed very, very different.

It’ll be in an empty Wrigley Field, with crowd noise piped in. I watched some of the Yankees/Mets game on ESPN Saturday night, with crowd noise, and just listening to the sounds of the game it felt like a “normal” baseball game. Of course, that’s not what’s happening and there’s a case to be made that these games shouldn’t be played at all, nor should the 60-game season which is scheduled to begin Friday.

But, again... here we are. Today and tomorrow are practice games against the White Sox, then the Cubs will host the Twins Wednesday at Wrigley Field before things begin Friday.

There will be a recap of this game here at 8 a.m. CT tomorrow.

One note: Some standings pages have included Saturday’s games as part of the spring standings — ESPN.com’s, for example. MLB.com’s standings page, however, doesn’t. Not that it matters much, but I’m going to include them on the BCB standings page (which always resides on the front page). The Cubs were 8-12-1 in their Cactus League action before things were stopped in March.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

White Sox lineup:

Kyle Hendricks will start for the Cubs. The Professor is on target to start the regular-season opener on Friday against the Brewers. I’d expect him to go five or six innings tonight.

Drew Anderson will start for the White Sox. If you are not familiar with Anderson (and I wasn’t), he was in the Phillies organization and made nine appearances for them from 2017-19. They released him at the end of the 2019 season and the Sox signed him to a minor-league deal last November.

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. Here is a complete channel guide for all the providers currently signed up with Marquee. If you don’t have access to Marquee, the game is also being carried by the White Sox local channel, NBC Sports Chicago, and outside the Cubs and White Sox market territory it’ll be on ESPN. ESPN announcers: Jon Sciambi, Rick Sutcliffe and Chipper Jones.

Just to make it clear:

If you’re in the Cubs market territory and your provider carries Marquee, you can watch the game there.

If you’re in the Cubs market territory and your provider does NOT carry Marquee, you can watch the game on NBC Sports Chicago with the Sox announcers.

If you are OUTSIDE the Cubs market territory, you can watch on ESPN or MLB.TV (see the MLB.com Mediacenter link below). You will need a MLB.TV subscription to access games at that link.

There will be radio broadcasts on 670 The Score (Cubs) and WGN (Sox).

MLB.com Gameday if you don’t have access to a broadcast.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

Please visit our SB Nation White Sox site South Side Sox. If you do go there to interact with White Sox 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.

We’re going to use the spring-training game thread procedure for the Cubs’ three exhibition games this week. Thus, we’ll have a first-pitch thread at five minutes to game time and one overflow thread, 90 minutes after game time. For today, that will be 7 p.m. CT and 8:30 p.m. CT.

These threads will not post individually onto the front page; instead, you can find links to them in the box marked ”Chicago Cubs Game Threads” at the bottom of the front page. There will also be a StoryStream on the front page with all the game thread links, as well as the recap after the game is over. The pitcher boxes and regular-season stats will return on Opening Day.

Discuss amongst yourselves.