Chicago Cubs vs. Milwaukee Brewers preview, Thursday 8/12, 1:20 CT

Thursday notes...

• FAILURE: Since June 13, when the Cubs were at a season-high 11 games over .500 at 38-27, they are 14-37. Only three Cubs teams in history have had worse 51-game stretches: 1921 and 2000 (13-38), and 1999 (11-40).
• SUCCESS: Rafael Ortega has a career-high 15-game on-base streak dating to July 27. Over that span he is hitting .418/.467/.691 (23-for-55) with three doubles and four home runs.
• SUCCESS AND FAILURE: In the Cubs’ 52 wins, the team has hit .261 with 85 home runs to go along with a 2.07 team ERA. In the team’s 64 defeats, the club has batted .199 with 57 homers along with a 6.41 team ERA (387 earned runs in 534.1 IP).
• THE PROFESSOR: Kyle Hendricks received a no-decision on Friday and has not lost a game in his last 16 starts, the longest stretch by a Cub starter since Jake Arrieta went a franchise-record 24 straight games without a loss from July 30, 2015-May 31, 2016. More on Kyle below.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Brewers lineup:

Kyle Hendricks, RHP vs. Brandon Woodruff, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY NETWORK

Kyle Hendricks keeps cranking out good starts. He had another one last Friday against the White Sox.

He’s started three times vs. Milwaukee this year and has a 3.00 ERA and 1.167 WHIP in 18 innings. At Wrigley that’s a 1.50 ERA and 1.000 WHIP in two starts covering 18 innings.

So there’s a pretty good chance that Hendricks can hold down the high-powered Milwaukee offense, which has scored 20 runs in this series so far.

Statcast

Brandon Woodruff is having an excellent season and leads the NL in ERA+ (188) and MLB in WHIP (0.888).

That includes four starts against the Cubs in which he’s allowed two runs in 25 innings (0.72 ERA) with 30 strikeouts — and that was against the pre-selloff Cubs.

This group likely has no chance. Clearly, we are doomed. At least with these two pitchers going, the game might be a quick one.

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.