Chicago Cubs vs. Milwaukee Brewers preview, Monday 6/28, 7:10 CT

Today’s roster move: Here

Monday notes...

• DIVISIONAL WRAP: The Cubs are 19-14 vs. NL Central teams this year, the best record of any NL Central team within the division. Tonight is the first time they’ve played a divisional foe since since sweeping the Cardinals in a three-game set Wrigley Field, June 11-13. The Cubs have won nine of their last 10 within the division dating to May 23 in St. Louis.
• THE PROFESSOR: Kyle Hendricks has won each of his last eight outings, a career high. He’s the first Cub to win eight-consecutive starts since Jake Arrieta won nine straight from Sept. 22, 2015-May 3, 2016. The last Cub to win at least nine straight starts in a single season was Milt Pappas, who won 11 consecutive starts from Aug. 2-Oct. 1, 1972. More on Hendricks below.
• ENOUGH OF ALL THE K’s: Cubs batters struck out 14 or more times in each of the final three contests against the Dodgers. That’s the first time since at least 1901 the team has been struck out at least 14 times in three straight games.
• HOT-HITTING HEYWARD: Jason Heyward went 7-for-9 (.778) with three runs, a double and three walks in the first three games of the Dodgers series, reaching safely in 10 of 12 plate appearances. He reached safely in seven straight plate appearances through Saturday’s seventh inning before fouling out in the ninth.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Brewers lineup:

Also of interest:

Kyle Hendricks, RHP vs. Freddy Peralta, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY NETWORK

You all know how good Kyle Hendricks has been over the last couple of months, but let me put out some numbers for you: Last 10 starts, 2.53 ERA, 1.078 WHIP, only nine walks in 64 innings. He’s currently on a 16-inning scoreless streak.

But the better news is this: Even during Kyle’s horrific April, he squeezed in one excellent start vs. the Brewers, six shutout innings April 7 at Wrigley Field, with one walk and six strikeouts.

I’ll take another one of those tonight, please. Kyle has a 2.37 ERA in five starts so far this month and if he can put together an outing like that it might put him in the conversation for NL Pitcher of the Month for June.

Freddy Peralta is having a really good year and he has been particularly tough on the Cubs: Two starts, 11 innings, three hits, one run, 18 strikeouts.

What I left out there is that Peralta issued six walks in those 11 innings. His overall walk rate this year is decent at 3.7 per nine innings, but perhaps the Cubs can work counts and works some walks off Peralta, because he is not going to be easy to hit.

Willson Contreras is 3-for-10 lifetime vs. Peralta and Kris Bryant has homered off him.

That’s about all I’ve got, this will be a difficult game to win even if Hendricks continues to dominate hitters.

Statcast

Statcast

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

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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.