Chicago Cubs vs. Colorado Rockies preview, Thursday 8/5, 2:10 CT

Thursday notes...

• MORE WORDS OF WISDOM: Patrick Wisdom is batting .304 (17-for-56) with five homers, 17 RBI and a 1.021 OPS with two outs in an inning this season. Since July 26, Wisdom has hit safely in eight of nine games, batting .400 (12-for-30) in that span with two doubles, two homers, seven RBI, five walks and a 1.152 OPS.
• EVEN MORE WISDOM: Patrick Wisdom leads all NL rookies in home runs with 16. Others: Jazz Chisholm Jr., Dylan Carlson and Jonathan India, 11 and Pavin Smith and Tyrone Taylor, 9.
• CUBS PITCHING NOTE: Wednesday evening, Alec Mills became the first Cubs righthanded starter since John Lackey (May 9, 2017, game 2, seven shutout innings) to hold the Rockies to two or fewer runs in six or more innings pitched. He’s just the fourth Cubs righty to do that at Coors Field since 2009. The others: Lackey, Kyle Hendricks (in both 2014 and 2016) and Jeff Samardzija (in 2013).
• THE NEW CLOSER: Manuel Rodriguez picked up his first career save in just his third major league appearance. He’s the fifth Cub ever to record a save within his first three career games, joining Oscar Zamora (6/21/74 vs. Pittsburgh), Todd Wellemeyer (5/15/03 at Milwaukee), Jeff Samardzija (7/27/08 vs. Florida) and Kyuji Fujikawa (4/1/13 at Pittsburgh).

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

The Rockies lineup was not available at posting time. Please check the BCB Twitter feed for the Rockies lineup.

Jake Arrieta, RHP vs. Antonio Senzatela, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY NETWORK

Jake Arrieta has just had a bad year, period, no two ways around it. He was clearly pitch-limited in his last start, his first outing since missing three weeks with a hamstring strain.

And the worse news is his career ERA at Coors Field: 10.43 in three starts covering 14⅔ innings. Yikes.

Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Statcast

Antonio Senzatela has missed quite a bit of time this year. In May he was on the IL with a groin strain and on July 16 was placed on the COVID-19 list. He’s being activated for this start.

Since a rough beginning to this year Senzatela has thrown pretty well. Last 10 starts: 3.77 ERA, 1.291 WHIP. He has a good walk rate — just 2.0 per nine innings this year — so Cubs hitters should be ready to put the ball in play.

I guess I pretty much have to stop the “last time he faced the Cubs” parts of these previews because, well, in most cases those players are now gone. The only current Cub who has more than two career AB against Senzatela is Jason Heyward (2-for-4).

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

Please visit our SB Nation Rockies site Purple Row. If you do go there to interact with Rockies 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.