Chicago Cubs vs. Kansas City Royals preview, Wednesday 8/5, 7:05 CT

A note on the makeup date for the July 30 rainout in Cincinnati:

More Wednesday notes...

• STREAKING: The Cubs are trying to win six straight for the first time since a seven-game winning streak, April 27-May 5 of last season at Arizona (2-0), at Seattle (2-0) and vs. St. Louis (3-0).
• ANNIVERSARY DAY: Javier Baez made his major league debut six years ago today, August 5, 2014 at Colorado and hit a game-winning homer in the 12th inning. August 5 has been a big day throughout his career for Javy as he has a lifetime .333 average (7-for-21) with two doubles, four homers and eight RBI in five games on August 5, including a two-homer game last season vs. Oakland.
• HOME RUN FUN: The Cubs have hit 19 home runs thus far. Only the Yankees and Dodgers (20 each) have more. Also, the Cubs have had nine players hit at least one homer, only the Dodgers (11 players) and Braves (also 11) in the N.L. have had more players go deep.
• GOOD PEN, BAD PEN: The Cubs bullpen, despite a 7.64 ERA (28 earned runs in 31 innings) so far this season, is 4-for-4 in save chances, the only N.L. club and just one of five teams without a blown save in at least four chances (also the Indians, Tigers, Twins and White Sox).
• WINNING: Since the start of the 2015 season, the Cubs have won 480 games, third in the majors behind the Dodgers (493) and Astros (487).
• MILLSY: On Monday, Alec Mills made these postgame comments:

Today, he posted this clarification on those remarks:

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Royals lineup:

Yu Darvish, RHP vs. Kris Bubic, LHP

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports

Yu Darvish had a mediocre first start that probably wasn’t as bad as the numbers, then threw really well against the Pirates in start number 2 last Friday, the latter being much more like his great second half of 2019 (six shutout innings, two hits, one walk, seven strikeouts).

Darvish hasn’t faced the Royals since July 16, 2017 and most of those guys aren’t on the team anymore. Current Royals are a small-sample-size 8-for-32 against Yu.

One thing I am very happy about when watching Darvish pitch is that I don’t have to watch him hit anymore. As a Cub he hit .088/.113/.103 (6-for-68) with 38 strikeouts. Yuck.

Kris Bubic is making his second MLB start. He was the Royals’ supplemental first-round pick (40th overall) in the 2018 draft. Prior to this year he had not pitched above A ball.

Bubic’s previous start was last Friday against the White Sox. He threw four innings and allowed a three-run homer to Adam Engel which accounted for all the runs he allowed (two earned).

Bubic and Nico Hoerner were teammates at Stanford and this article in The Athletic details the close friendship between the two. It’ll be interesting to see who wins the battle between them 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 Royals site Royals Review. If you do go there to interact with Royals 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.