Chicago Cubs vs. Colorado Rockies preview, Thursday 4/14, 7:40 CT

Thursday notes:

• SEIYA: With his RBI single yesterday in Pittsburgh, Suzuki became the 18th Cub since 1901 to hit safely in each of his first five career major league games with an at-bat. This was most recently done by Willson Contreras (2016), Jorge Soler (2014), Junior Lake (2013) and Bobby Scales (2009). Contreras went on to hit safely in his first seven games with an at-bat.
• MORE SEIYA: Suzuki has swung at just 8.3 percent of pitches outside the strike zone, the lowest mark among any qualifying player in baseball. (H/T: Fangraphs)
• WILLSON!: Since his major league debut in 2016, Willson Contreras’ 24 catcher pickoffs lead the majors, well ahead of teammate Yan Gomes (13), J.T. Realmuto (11) and Gary Sánchez (11).
• CUBS AT COORS: Jonathan Villar has a lifetime .349 BA (15-for-43) with a .952 OPS in 13 career games at Coors Field, and Jason Heyward has batted .329 (26-for-79) with with three homers, 14 RBI and a .968 OPS in 21 games in the home of the Rockies.
• DE-FENSE!: The Cubs have opened the season with five straight errorless games for the second straight season. The last time the Cubs began a season with six straight errorless games was 1992.
• SOME WORDS FROM KB:

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Rockies lineup:

Also of interest tonight (time listed is ET):

Justin Steele, LHP vs. Kyle Freeland, LHP

Justin Steele threw five very good innings against the Brewers in his first 2022 outing.

Now, a bigger test: A good-hitting Rockies team in their home park. Steele started against the Rockies August 25, 2021 at Wrigley Field and the results were not good: 3⅔ innings, five hits, four runs, a homer by Brendan Rodgers.

Hopefully, he’s figured out what went wrong then and can do better tonight.

Kyle Freeland started against the Dodgers April 8 at Coors Field and allowed five runs in 3⅔ innings.

His last start against the Cubs was August 3, 2021 in Denver and he held the Cubs to two runs in five innings, one of the runs coming on a solo homer by Ian Happ.

Both of these young(ish) guys are being counted on as key parts of their teams’ rotations so... tonight could be very important to their futures.

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 2022 Game Thread procedure will be like last years, 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.