Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres preview, Tuesday 6/8, 9:10 CT

Tuesday notes...

• THE LONG BALL: The Cubs have homered in eight-straight games since May 31, hitting 15 home runs in that span. The team’s 77 home runs this season rank fourth in the NL, trailing the Braves (86), Giants (85) and Reds (82).
• CALL FOR BACKUP: Willson Contreras leads the majors with 49 starts and 415 innings at catcher. Christian Vazquez is second with 394⅓ innings caught.
• REVERSE SPLITS: Anthony Rizzo leads all left-handed hitters with a .377 average (20-for-53) against left-handed pitching this season and his .933 OPS against LH pitchers ranks sixth in the majors against LHP. Meanwhile, Rizzo is hitting .215 (29-for-135) with four homers and a .713 OPS against righthanders.
• FOR CLOSERS: Craig Kimbrel has limited the opponent to a .122 average (10-for-82), a .198 OBP and a .381 OPS this season. He’s walked eight and struck out 41 in 24 innings, good for an average of 15.37 strikeouts per nine innings.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Padres lineup:

Zach Davies, RHP vs. Dinelson Lamet, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY NETWORK

Zach Davies has not done well on the road this year — 6.75 ERA, 2.083 WHIP in six starts.

However, remember that Petco Park was his home park last year. He posted a 3.13 ERA and 1.105 WHIP in five starts there in 2020 covering 31⅔ innings. Lifetime in nine starts at Petco: 3.40 ERA in 53 innings.

So he’s got some history of success in San Diego. (Don’t look at this boxscore link from his last start there as a visitor, though. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Current Padres are a small-sample-size 9-for-38 against him. Victor Caratini and Eric Hosmer have homered off Davies.

Dinelson Lamet held the Cubs to one run in four innings last Wednesday at Wrigley Field, with six strikeouts.

The key is “four innings.” Lamet is still ramping up, that start was a season high in innings, batters faced (17) and pitches thrown (72). He might not go more than five tonight. Hopefully the Cubs can get to him early and force them to go deep into their bullpen.

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 Padres market territories).

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Padres site Gaslamp Ball. If you do go there to interact with Padres 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.