Chicago Cubs vs. Minnesota Twins preview, Wednesday 9/1, 7:10 CT

Today’s roster moves: Here

Wednesday notes...

• HAPP-ENINGS: Ian Happ hit his 17th home run of the season Tuesday night. It was just his third off a left-handed pitcher. Happ now has homers in three of his last five games. The homer traveled an estimated 437 feet, his second longest of the 2021 season behind a 439-foot blast on August 13 at Miami. Since August 13 Happ is hitting .333/.390/.759 (18-for-54) with five doubles and six home runs and has raised his season OPS from .599 to .681.
• SCHWINDY CITY UPDATE: Frank Schwindel opened Tuesday night’s scoring with a first-pitch solo homer in the first inning. He has hit safely in 22 of his first 27 games with the Cubs since July 30, hitting .340/.390/.629 (33-for-97) with eight doubles, one triple, six home runs, 18 RBI in that span.
• HEY HEY J-HEY!: Jason Heyward is on a six-game hitting streak during which he is batting .450/.476/.550 (9-for-20) with two doubles. He’s raised his season OPS from .579 to .608 in that span.
• THIS GUY HAS BEEN REALLY GOOD: Adam Morgan has posted a 2.40 ERA (four earned runs in 15 innings) in his last 19 games since July 17, walking four, striking out 20 and holding opponents to a .189 average (10-for-53) and a .246 on-base percentage.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Twins lineup:

Justin Steele, LHP vs. Joe Ryan, RHP

USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY NETWORK

Justin Steele has had one good start and two mediocre ones since joining the Cubs rotation in August.

Steele has never faced the Twins; the only current Twin who’s ever seen him is Willians Astudillo, who faced him in two relief appearances Steele made for Triple-A Iowa in July.

Steele won’t have to bat tonight; perhaps he can go a bit longer in this game, as his max MLB pitch count is 82.

Statcast

Joe Ryan was the Rays’ seventh-round pick in the 2018 draft (for reference, the Cubs’ pick in that round was D.J. Artis).

He was acquired by the Twins in the Nelson Cruz deal, spent time in Tokyo this summer with the U.S. Olympic baseball team, and has made two starts for Triple-A St. Paul since returning. One of those starts was against the Iowa Cubs August 20 in St. Paul, where Alfonso Rivas went 0-for-2 against him. Ryan struck out the first six I-Cubs he faced.

Ryan will be making his MLB debut tonight.

Overall his minor-league career has shown a good K rate (13.0 per nine innings) as well as a good walk rate (2.1 per nine innings), so it’s obvious he throws strikes. Cubs hitters should look to put the ball in play.

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.