Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres preview, Monday 6/13, 7:05 CT

Today's roster move: Here

There are possible storms in tonight’s forecast, so here’s the local radar for you:

Monday notes...

• THE MOREL FILES: Christopher Morel’s team-record 22-game on-base streak to start his career was the fourth-longest such streak since 1969 (the divisional play era). Longer: Luis Alicea, 1988 (23), Rocco Baldelli, 2003 (24) and Alvin Davis, 1984 (47).
• WE CAN WAIT A WHILE: The road trip sweep made the Cubs 2-9 in interleague play so far in 2022, and combined with their 6-14 mark last year they’re 8-23 against AL teams since the beginning of 2021. The next AL team the Cubs will face will be the Red Sox, July 1-3 at Wrigley Field.
• THEY STILL GET AHEAD EARLY: The Cubs’ first-inning run Sunday gave them 51 first-inning runs this year, most in MLB. But they are just 12-11 this year when ahead after the first inning.
• RELIEF WORK: The Cubs bullpen leads MLB in strikeouts with 291. A lot of that is due to the fact that the Cubs pen has pitched the fourth-most innings of any team in baseball. The Twins pen is second with 265.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Padres lineup:

Justin Steele, LHP vs. Yu Darvish, RHP

Justin Steele had a really good outing June 5 against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. Then he didn’t pitch at all on the road trip, which maybe was a good thing. This probably wasn’t due to any injury issues, more likely it was because of the two off days and the rainout in Baltimore.

Steele has never faced the Padres. Perhaps this will be to his advantage.

Yu Darvish has had some really good starts this year, including throwing six no-hit innings in his first outing, and allowing just two hits in seven innings to the Mets in his last outing June 7.

On the other hand, he had the worst start of his career April 12 against the Giants (nine runs in less than two innings) and has been hit hard in a couple of other outings this year.

Most current Cubs have not faced him — not even Willson Contreras, who’s just 0-for-2 against him. Yan Gomes is 4-for-8, for whatever that’s worth.

This will be Darvish’s first game against the Cubs since he was traded away after the 2020 season.

Statcast

Statcast

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. Here’s a list of providers currently carrying Marquee. It will also be on MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Padres market territories).

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Padres site Gaslamp Ball. If you do go there to interact with Padres 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.