Chicago Cubs vs. Milwaukee Brewers preview, Monday 4/5, 6:40 CT

Monday notes:

• UNDER THE LIGHTS: Tonight is the first of 34 scheduled night games at Wrigley Field this year. Since lights were installed at Wrigley Field during the 1988 season, the Cubs are 418‐356 (.540) in regular-season night games at the Friendly Confines.
• WALK ON BY: Cubs hitters have led off each of their first three games with A walk, as Ian Happ drew free passes Opening Day and Sunday while Willson Contreras led off Saturday’s contest with a walk.
• FLASHING THE LEATHER: For the second straight year, the Cubs have gone errorless in their first three games to start a season. Prior to 2020, the Cubs hadn’t started a season with three straight errorless games since 2005. If they don’t commit an error tonight, that would make four straight games without an error to start a season since the 1992 Cubs started with six consecutive errorless games.
• PATIENCE: Cubs hitters are averaging 4.38 pitches per plate appearance, tops in the majors (the Athletics are second at 4.32). Anthony Rizzo ranks third in the NL with 5.08 pitches per plate appearance while Willson Contreras is fifth (4.92) and Joc Pederson (4.67) is tied for 10th.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Brewers lineup:

Trevor Williams, RHP vs. Brett Anderson, LHP

MLB Photos via Getty Images

MLB Photos via Getty Images

New year, new start for Trevor Williams. He’s 100 percent healthy (he wasn’t the last two years) and had an excellent spring (1.32 ERA, 0.951 WHIP in 13⅔ innings).

Williams faced the Brewers once last year, August 31 in Milwaukee, and it did not go well: seven hits, five runs (three earned) in four innings. Current Brewers are hitting .235 (19-for-81) against Williams with five home runs, three of those by Keston Hiura.

Also, this is cool:

This is Brett Anderson’s 13th big-league season. Most of the previous 12 have been pretty good, but the six starts he made for the 2017 Cubs were probably six he’d like to forget. You’ve probably forgotten them by now, right?

Anderson faced the Cubs once in 2020, August 13 at Wrigley Field. He allowed five hits and two walks in 4⅓ innings; the Cubs eventually won 4-2.

Current Cubs are hitting .327 (17-for-52) against Anderson, good numbers in a small sample size, with two home runs (Kris Bryant and Jake Marisnick).

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

Today’s game is also on ESPN+. Click here to subscribe to ESPN+.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Brewers site Brew Crew Ball. If you do go there to interact with Brewers 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.