Chicago Cubs vs. Pittsburgh Pirates preview, Thursday 4/1, 1:20 CT

For more on Opening Day, click here.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Pirates lineup:

Kyle Hendricks, RHP vs. Chad Kuhl, RHP

MLB Photos via Getty Images

MLB Photos via Getty Images

This is Kyle Hendricks’ second Opening Day start. The other one, of course, was last July in the abbreviated 60-game season. He threw a three-hit shutout that night against the Brewers, striking out nine. I’d take one of those today.

Last year Kyle started twice vs. the Pirates and allowed three earned runs in 13⅔ innings. Current members of the Pirates are hitting .208 (39-for-133) against him but watch out for Adam Frazier, who is 12-for-33 (.364) with two homers off Kyle.

Chad Kuhl made three starts against the Cubs last year and overall, the results were decent: 2.92 ERA, 1.297 WHIP in 12⅓ innings.

Current Cubs are hitting .219 (39-for-128) vs. Kuhl with six home runs, two by Anthony Rizzo, who is 8-for-24 (.333) lifetime vs. Kuhl with four walks. Jason Heyward (10-for-20) and Willson Contreras (6-for-11) also have hit Kuhl well. All of those, of course, are relatively small sample sizes.

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network.

Here’s 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 Pirates site Bucs Dugout. If you do go there to interact with Pirates 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 2021 Game Thread procedure will be a bit different than previous years. It will be similar to what we’ve used for Spring Training.

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, titled “Cubs vs. (Team) (Day of week/date) game threads.” It will contain every post related to that particular game, including the First Pitch Thread and the overflow thread, as well as the recap when it’s published. The recap will also live on the front page as a separate post.

You will also be able to find the preview, First Pitch Thread and the overflow thread in the box marked “Chicago Cubs Game Threads” at the bottom of the front page (you can also find them in this section link). The StoryStream for each game can also be found in that section.

The First Pitch thread will post at five minutes before game time, then an overflow thread at 90 minutes after the scheduled game time.

Discuss amongst yourselves.