Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds preview, Wednesday 7/29, 5:40 CT

You can, I believe, follow and enjoy the games that are being played, while still being concerned that COVID-19 protocols aren’t being completely followed and that it might be necessary to shut the game down. The two are not mutually exclusive, in my view.

With that, the Cubs are off to a fine start and even if there’s not much more baseball this year, I think we can appreciate what’s happened thus far.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Reds lineup:

Kyle Hendricks, RHP vs. Sonny Gray, RHP

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Kyle Hendricks threw a three-hit, nine-strikeout, complete-game shutout in his last outing.

Seriously, what else do you need to know? Just do it again, Professor.

(If you insist, you can look at the boxscore from the last time Kyle pitched in Cincinnati, August 10, 2019, but it’s not pretty. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Sonny Gray was the starting pitcher for the Reds in that 8/10/19 game, and he threw six shutout innings against the Cubs. Gray, in fact, was very good against the Cubs in five starts last year: 30 innings, 2.70 ERA, 0.833 WHIP, 37 strikeouts, and in fact, had an excellent season against everyone (5.6 bWAR, seventh in Cy Young voting).

He threw six innings against the Tigers last Friday and allowed three hits and one run, with nine strikeouts.

This game will be a good test for the Cubs offense. Glad The Professor is Gray’s opponent.

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. Here is a list of providers currently carrying Marquee.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Reds site Red Reporter. If you do go there to interact with Reds 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 2020 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.