Chicago Cubs vs. Boston Red Sox preview, Friday 7/1, 1:20 CT

Friday notes...

• WORDS OF WISDOM: Patrick Wisdom, last nine games since June 21: .324/.375/.703 (12-for-37) with two doubles and four home runs. His six-RBI game was the first for a Cub with at least that many since David Bote had seven RBI June 7, 2019 at Colorado.
• THE NICO FILES: Nico Hoerner’s three-hit night Thursday extended his career-best hitting streak to eight games. In that streak he is batting .531/.556/.688 (17-for-32) with two doubles, a home run and only four strikeouts.
• THE MOREL FILES: Christopher Morel is 7-for-9 over his last two games with a double and two home runs. He’s raised his OPS from .753 to .836 over just those last two games. He went 8-for-14 in the three-game series against the Reds.
• SOME LOVE FOR P.J.: P.J. Higgins is batting .343/.395/.686 (12-for-35) with three homers and 10 RBI at Wrigley Field this season.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Red Sox lineup:

Adrian Sampson, RHP vs. Rich Hill, LHP

Adrian Sampson, originally drafted by the Pirates out of a community college in Washington state in 2012, wound up a whole bunch of “nothing special” in brief MLB time with the Mariners in 2016 and the Rangers in 2018 and 2019.

It’s still a small sample size with the Cubs — just 46 innings last year and this — but it appears maybe he’s figured something out at age 30. His interview during last Sunday’s game in St. Louis seemed to indicate so. He threw well last weekend in St. Louis.

His last career start vs. Boston was in 2019, and it did not go well. Seriously, don’t look.

Here’s hoping for better than that this afternoon.

Rich Hill’s first MLB start was for the Cubs against the Giants July 25, 2005. Among hitters he faced: Omar Vizquel, Moises Alou and Mike Matheny.

Yes, he’s been around a while, now in his 18th MLB season. This year, he started out well, but over his last eight starts: 4.97 ERA, 1.395 WHIP, six home runs in 38 innings.

Hill last faced the Cubs September 18, 2020 when he was with the Twins, and allowed just one hit in seven innings. Most of those Cubs are gone now; the only current Cub with more than four PA against Hill is Willson Contreras (4-for-8, a home run).

Statcast

Statcast

Also of interest for today (time listed is ET):

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

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Red Sox site Over The Monster. If you do go there to interact with Red Sox 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.