Chicago Cubs vs. Philadelphia Phillies preview, Saturday 7/23, 5:05 CT

SITE NOTE: Due to the very early start for Sunday’s game (11:05 a.m. CT), there will be special times for the recap of tonight’s game and the preview for Sunday’s.

Tonight’s recap will post at 7:30 a.m. CT tomorrow. The preview for Sunday’s game will post at 10 a.m. CT tomorrow.

Just wanted to give you a heads-up.

Saturday notes...

• THINGS ARE BETTER THAN YOU THINK DEPARTMENT: After Friday’s blowout win, the Cubs are now 13-17 (.433) in games decided by five or more runs and 24-40 (.375) in all other games. They’re also playing two games worse than their Pythagorean W/L projection.
• A CONTACT HITTER: Nico Hoerner leads all qualified NL hitters in K rate, striking out just once every 9.58 plate appearances (31 strikeouts in 297 PA).
• A HOT HITTER: Seiya Suzuki in 14 games since returning from the injured list: .400/.444/.600 (20-for-50) with a double, three home runs and only eight strikeouts.
• THE NEW GUYS: The Cubs have used 15 rookies this season, nine pitchers (Scott Effross, Anderson Espinoza, Brandon Hughes, Caleb Kilian, Ethan Roberts, Locke St. John, Eric Stout, Matt Swarmer and Erich Uelmen, who made his MLB debut Friday) and six position players (Narciso Crook, P.J. Higgins, Christopher Morel, Alfonso Rivas, Seiya Suzuki and Nelson Velázquez). Of that group, 10 have made their major league debuts this year

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Phillies lineup:

Marcus Stroman, RHP vs. Zack Wheeler, RHP

These numbers look pretty good, right?

Eight and a third innings, three hits, one run, three walks, nine strikeouts.

That would be a fantastic game! For Marcus Stroman, it’s the combined numbers from his last two starts, both coming after his return from the injured list with shoulder issues. He threw 83 pitches in the second one of those, last Saturday against the Mets, and hopefully can throw up to six innings tonight.

As a former Met, Stroman faced the Phillies a lot — five times last year. He posted a 1.80 ERA and 1.080 WHIP in 25 innings in those five starts. That’s good! Plus, he has a career 1.93 ERA and 1.071 WHIP in 23⅓ innings in Citizens Bank Park. Current Phillies are hitting .215 (32-for-149) against him with 27 strikeouts.

This would all seem to be a good sign for tonight’s game.

Phillies ace Zack Wheeler is having a good season, and had a streak of 20 scoreless innings broken up by the Blue Jays in his last start. He hasn’t pitched in 10 days, which is either good rest or too long of a layoff.

He has not faced the Cubs since 2019, which means most of the current active Cubs roster has not faced him. Current Cubs are a small sample size .342 (13-for-38) against Wheeler with two home runs (Yan Gomes, Ian Happ).

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 Phillies site The Good Phight. If you do go there to interact with Phillies 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 year’s, 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.