Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds preview, Saturday 5/29, 1:20 CT

Saturday notes:

• ONE RUN, HOMER ONLY: Prior to yesterday’s 1-0 win, the Cubs last won 1-0 decisions with home runs accounting for the lone runs August 16 and 17, 2018 against the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Ian Happ and Kyle Schwarber accounted for the homers in those games. More on Cubs 1-0 games in JohnW53’s Fanpost.
• GETTING THAT RUN DIFFERENTIAL UP: The Cubs enter today with a plus-23 run differential this season (227-204), the fourth-best differential in the N.L. behind the Padres (+86), Dodgers (+74) and Giants (+58).
• THIS MAY BE GREAT: The Cubs have three games remaining in May and are 17-7 this month. Just 11 times since 1901 have the Cubs won more than 17 games in May, last done in 2016 (18-10). The franchise record for wins in May is 21, set in 1903, tied in 1977.
• THE BOTE OF THE BARREL: David Bote ranks tied for fourth in the NL, barreling up the ball in 9.4 percent of his plate appearances, trailing only Ronald Acuna Jr. (12.7), Brandon Crawford (9.8) and Jesse Winker (9.6).

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Reds lineup:

Zach Davies, RHP vs. Luis Castillo, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

Zach Davies in May: five starts, 1.71 ERA, 1.367 WHIP, just one HR allowed in 26⅓ innings. That’s borderline excellent, though he’s still not going very deep into games. Pitch counts for the five starts: 76, 81, 75, 77, 76. So, it looks like maybe six good innings is his limit.

The Cubs won four of those five games, the only loss (of course, by one run) in extra innings in Cleveland May 12.

Luis Castillo, meanwhile, has been awful in his five May outings: 9.00 ERA, 2.000 WHIP, 12 walks in 23 innings. The Reds have lost all five of those starts.

That includes a game May 1 in Cincinnati, a pitching rematch of this afternoon’s matchup. Davies wasn’t great, but he did allow just one earned run, even though he couldn’t complete five innings. The Cubs touched up Castillo for three runs in 5⅓ innings, just enough for a 3-2 win.

I’ll take another one of those today, please.

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 Reds site Red Reporter. If you do go there to interact with Reds 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.