Chicago Cubs vs. Cleveland Indians preview, Wednesday 8/12, 5:10 CT

This seems important:

The seven previous years are 1907, 1908, 1918, 1932, 1969, 1970 and 2016. Three of those years should immediately stand out to you as Cubs World Series winning seasons. Two others were N.L. pennant years, and let’s not talk about 1969 and 1970.

Still, this would seem to bode well for this year’s Cubs, especially since 14 games is 23 percent of the season.

Other notes for Wednesday:

• HAPP-Y BIRTHDAY, IAN! Ian Happ turns 26 today. Fun fact: his 53 home runs are already second-most in franchise history among switch-hitters, surpassed only by Augie Galan’s 59 homers from 1934-41.
• INTERLEAGUING: Sammy Sosa holds the franchise marks with 33 homers and 100 RBI in interleague play. Anthony Rizzo is second in both categories with 24 homers and 93 RBI against the A.L. with the Cubs and Jon Lester’s 16 interleague victories as a Cub are the franchise record.
• IN THE LATE INNINGS: The Cubs lead the majors with 11 home runs and a .933 OPS in the seventh inning or later.
• STARTING POINTS: Cubs starting pitchers rank third in the majors with a 2.73 ERA (25 earned runs in 82⅓ innings) and a .196 opponent batting average. Tonight’s opponent, Cleveland, leads the majors as its starters have posted a 2.24 ERA thus far

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Indians lineup:

Kyle Hendricks, RHP vs. Carlos Carrasco, RHP

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Kyle Hendricks has made two good starts and one not-so-good one this season, leaving him with the second-highest ERA among Cubs starters, which is a credit to how good the entire rotation has been.

Believe it or not, Kyle’s only career starts against the Indians were in the 2016 World Series. Overall, he threw nine innings against them in the WS, allowed 10 hits, two walks and two runs (one earned) with eight strikeouts. That’s awfully good pitching in the most stressful of circumstances. Fun fact: Both runs charged to Hendricks in the WS were in Game 7. One was unearned due to an error on the guy who’s now Kyle’s manager (David Ross) and that run was scored by a guy who’s now his teammate (Jason Kipnis).

Carlos Carrasco, on the other hand, missed the entire 2016 postseason — otherwise we might be talking about a different result to that WS. He has never faced the Cubs and only Steven Souza Jr. (1-for-8, though not starting tonight) among current Cubs has more than three career at-bats against him.

Carrasco has made three very good starts this year, striking out 23 in 18 innings. He’s also a cancer survivor and one of the game’s good guys. So we can salute him for all that, and then hope the Cubs hit him hard tonight.

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 Indians site Let’s Go Tribe. If you do go there to interact with Indians 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/Date) 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.