Chicago Cubs vs. Arizona Diamondbacks preview, Sunday 5/22, 1:20 CT

Today's roster move: Here

Sunday notes...

• THE NOT SO FRIENDLY CONFINES: The Cubs are 6-15 at home. The only other season in which they started 6-15 at home was 2002. They have never started 6-16. (H/T: Ed Hartig) In addition, the Cubs lost their last nine home games in 2021, so they are 6-24 over their last 30 games at Wrigley Field.
• HE’S HOT: Jonathan Villar, last six games: .364/.417/.773 (8-for-22), three doubles, two home runs.
• HE’S NOT: Seiya Suzuki, last six games: .214/.267/.357 (6-for-28), 11 strikeouts.
• THE STARTERS: Cubs starting pitchers have posted a 3.28 ERA (25 earned runs in 68⅔ innings) in the team’s last 13 games since May 8, allowing more than three runs only twice (May 13 at Arizona and May 20 vs. Arizona).

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

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

Wade Miley, LHP vs. Merrill Kelly, RHP

USA TODAY NETWORK

USA TODAY NETWORK

After a rough first start in 2022, Wade Miley was lights-out last Monday against the Pirates, throwing seven one-hit innings.

Oddity for a guy who’s been around as long as Miley: He’s only faced the D-backs once, and that was back in 2016, so irrelevant to now. No one on the D-backs active roster has ever faced him. Perhaps that will be to his advantage.

Merrill Kelly’s eight starts so far this year have been pretty good. Well... except for the last one against the Dodgers, where he got pounded for eight runs in fewer than three innings.

Kelly faced the Cubs twice last year, both before the selloff, so again most of those guys are gone. No current Cub has more than six at-bats against him. Willson Contreras is 2-for-4 with a home run, for whatever that’s worth.

Statcast

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 Diamondbacks site AZ Snakepit. If you do go there to interact with D-backs 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.