Chicago Cubs vs. Los Angeles Dodgers preview, Thursday 6/24, 9:10 CT

Thursday notes:

• THE ROAD IS TOUGH: The three-city 10-game sojourn that begins tonight is the Cubs’ longest trip of the season. The Cubs are winless in their last five regular season series at Dodger Stadium, going 0-4-1 dating to 2015. The last time the Cubs won a series in Los Angeles was August 1-3, 2014 when they took two of three.
• EVERYONE DIGS THE LONG BALL: The Cubs have gone deep in 18 of thir last 22 games since May 31 and have hit 38 total homers in that span, the most in the NL and second in baseball behind the Astros (41).
• WORDS OF WISDOM: Patrick Wisdom on Tuesday hit his 10th homer of the season, the most among NL rookies and tied for third-most among all rookies. Wisdom is the first Cubs rookie to reach 10 homers within his first 27 games played in a season. (H/T: Elias Sports Bureau)
• GOTTA BE BETTER THAN THIS: The Cubs have dropped six of their last nine games since June 14. In those nine games the Cubs hit .156 (42-for-270) with 12 homers, averaged 2.3 runs per game and posted a 4.38 ERA (38 earned runs in 78 innings).

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Dodgers lineup:

Zach Davies, RHP vs. Walker Buehler, RHP

You know, as bad as Zach Davies’ last start was, his overall numbers since May 1 are still pretty good: 10 starts, 2.98 ERA, 1.233 WHIP, just three HR in 54⅓ innings.

Feel better now?

Davies faced the Dodgers twice in the regular season in 2020 and posted a 3.46 ERA and 1.154 WHIP. In Game 2 of last year’s division series vs. L.A., he allowed nine hits and four runs in five innings.

He has a 1.29 ERA in four career starts at Dodger Stadium, so there’s that.

Good luck, Zach, you’re probably gonna need it.

Walker Buehler allowed two runs in six innings May 5 at Wrigley Field, including a home run by Jake Marisnick, and left the game with the lead. But the Cubs tied things up and eventually won in 11 innings.

Since then Buehler has a 1.86 ERA and 0.881 WHIP in eight starts and a .166 opponents BA.

Current Cubs are hitting a small-sample-size .220 (11-for-50) against Buehler with two home runs, the aforementioned Marisnick blast and one by Javier Báez.

I’m going to try something new here; if you like these let me know and I can continue posting them.

Also of interest for this series (time listed is ET):

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. Here’s a list of providers currently carrying Marquee. It’s also on MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Dodgers market territories).

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Dodgers site True Blue LA. If you do go there to interact with Dodgers 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.