Chicago Cubs vs. Detroit Tigers preview, Saturday 5/15, 3:10 CT

Today’s roster move: Here

Saturday notes...

• WINNING THE CLOSE ONES: After Friday’s 4-2 win, the Cubs are 12-9 in games decided by two or fewer runs. (Of course, that means they’re 6-10 in games decided by MORE than two runs.)
• DOUBLING THEIR PLEASURE: With three turned Friday night, the Cubs have 37 double plays this season, tied for the most in the N.L. with the Marlins and tied for fourth-most in the majors.
• JOC POP: Joc Pederson has hit .484/.514/.516 (15-for-31) with a 1.030 OPS in eight games since returning from the 10-day injured list (left wrist tendinitis), May 4. This eight-game stretch has lifted his season slash line to .268/.354/.341 from .137/.262/.235. He also has four straight multi-hit games. The last Cub with a longer multi-hit game streak: Jon Jay with five, September 20-24, 2017.
• THE SYSTEM PRODUCES: The Cubs have four homegrown pitchers on the active roster: Adbert Alzolay, Dillon Maples, Justin Steele and Keegan Thompson. Those four have combined to pitch in 29 games (seven starts), posting a 3.05 ERA (22 earned runs in 65 innings) with 27 walks and 79 strikeouts.

Cubs lineup:

Tigers lineup:

Trevor Williams, RHP vs. Jose Ureña, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY Sports

Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, but I’m going to mention home/road splits for Trevor Williams.

Home: four starts, 3.15 ERA, 1.200 WHIP, .213 opponents BA, 2 HR in 20 innings
Road: three starts, 10.64 ERA, 2.727 WHIP, .415 opponents BA, 4 HR in 11 innings

Draw your own conclusions.

Williams has had good results career-wise vs. the Tigers: four starts, 3.38 ERA, 1.000 WHIP, and even better in Comerica Park: two starts, 1.50 ERA, 1.000 WHIP. Small sample sizes here, of course. Also here: no current Tiger has more than six career PA vs. Williams.

So, the conclusion I draw: It’s time for Trevor to improve on that road record.

The Cubs have a bit of a history with Jose Ureña, then with the Marlins. Remember this game from March 29, 2018?

Ureña hit three Cubs in that game and allowed two home runs (Ian Happ and Anthony Rizzo). Career-wise, he has a 4.05 ERA and 1.380 WHIP in six starts against the Cubs. Ureña led MLB in hit batters in 2017 (14) and led the NL in 2018 (12). You can tell Javy Baez wasn’t happy about this one [VIDEO].

This year, Ureña has been pretty good — 3.60 ERA, 1.400 WHIP — and hasn’t hit a single hitter in 40 innings. Maybe he’s figured things out. He has gone seven innings in four of his seven starts, and that’s two more times than all Cubs pitchers combined have thrown seven innings in a start this year.

Rizzo has had some success vs. Ureña: 7-for-14, the aforementioned home run.

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 Tigers site Bless You Boys. If you do go there to interact with Tigers 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.