Chicago Cubs vs. Toronto Blue Jays preview, Tuesday 8/30, 6:07 CT

TORONTO — Tuesday notes...

• CANADA DRY SPELL: The Cubs are 3-10 all-time at Rogers Centre and have not won a game in Canada since June 15, 2008.
• JUST ONE MORE: The Cubs are 14-14 this month with two games remaining. They need to at least split those two games to secure their first winning calendar month since going 19-8 in May 2021. The team has played 11 one-run games this month, going 6-5 in those games.
• WHERE DID THE BATS GO? Cubs batters have hit .203 (67-for-330) with a .258 OBP and .570 OPS in the team’s last 10 games since August 21. That includes a .264 BA (19-for-72) with runners in scoring position
• THERE’S SOME RELIEF, ANYWAY: Cubs relievers lead MLB with 589 strikeouts. The Twins are second with 534.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Blue Jays lineup:

Marcus Stroman, RHP vs. Kevin Gausman, RHP

USA TODAY NETWORK

USA TODAY NETWORK

This is homecoming for Marcus Stroman, who pitched for six years for the Blue Jays with a 3.76 ERA in 135 appearances (129 starts). The Jays traded him to the Mets in 2019 for Simeon Woods Richardson and Anthony Kay. Richardson was later sent to the Twins in the Jose Berrios deal.

Stroman has pitched much better on the road this year (2.08 ERA in 10 starts) than at Wrigley Field (6.92 ERA in eight starts), so I’d expect this one to go well. This will be Stroman’s first-ever start against his former team, though he has faced a few current Jays players and they are batting .209 (14-for-67) against him with 17 strikeouts.

Kevin Gausman had an outstanding year for the Giants in 2021 (sixth place in Cy Young voting, 21st place in MVP voting) and he parlayed that into a five-year, $110 million contract with the Blue Jays.

He’s done well: 3.15 ERA, 1.258 WHIP, 2.01 FIP (the latter leads MLB), 2.4 bWAR. His last start against the Cubs was September 11, 2021 at Wrigley Field. He allowed three runs in six innings.

Current Cubs are hitting a small-sample-size .237 (9-for-38) against Gausman with one home run (Willson Contreras).

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 Blue Jays site Bluebird Banter. If you do go there to interact with Blue Jays 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.