Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds preview, Wednesday 9/7, 6:40 CT

Wednesday notes...

• ATTENDANCE WATCH: The Cubs have announced 2,191,150 tickets sold through Monday, 67 dates. With 14 dates remaining they must average 22,061 per date to get to 2.5 million and 29,204 per date to get to 2.6 million. The Cubs have not sold fewer than 2.6 million tickets in any year with full capacity at Wrigley Field since 1997 (fewest since: 2,623,194 in 1998 and 2,642,682 in 2013).
• THE FRIENDLY CONFINES: The Cubs are 12-6 in their last 18 home games since July 17, and overall are 29-38 at home. If they can go 12-2 in the 14 remaining home games (obviously, not an easy task!) they can still have a winning season at Wrigley Field. They haven’t had a losing season at Wrigley since 2013 (31-50).
• HE’S HOT: Seiya Suzuki, last 16 games since August 21: .364/.444/.546 (20-for-55), four doubles, two home runs, eight walks, seven runs scored.d
• SO IS HE: Nick Madrigal, last 24 games since August 5: .308/.376/.352 (28-for-91), four doubles, eight walks, 11 runs scored.
• WALKATHON: The Cubs’ 11 walks Tuesday were their most in a nine-inning game since September 13, 2017 vs. the Mets. The Cubs haven’t walked 12 times in a nine-inning game since September 19, 2010 against the Marlins. The franchise record for such things is 15, set in an 18-5 win over the Mets, September 16, 1972. (Must be something about September!)

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Reds lineup:

Javier Assad, RHP vs. Mike Minor, LHP

Larry Kave/Myrtle Beach Pelicans

USA TODAY NETWORK

The graphic below shows quite the pitch arsenal for Javier Assad — six different types of pitches thrown in just three MLB appearances, and a total of 186 pitches thrown.

That’s all good! Assad has shown he can handle most MLB hitters, the results have been good, and more starts this month should improve his confidence.

He’s obviously never faced the Reds or anyone on their active roster.

Mike Minor has been around a long time and has made 16 starts for the Reds this year, exactly zero of which have been against the Cubs. In fact, if you think you haven’t seen much of Minor against the Cubs, you’re right — just once since 2014. That was a single start in 2019 for the Rangers against them, on Opening Day no less. Just two current Cubs (Willson Contreras and David Bote) from that game are still on the team, and just one current Cub has faced him more than a handful of times (Franmil Reyes, 2-for-10, two walks).

Overall this year, Minor has just been bad, at age 34 this is likely his last season. A couple of good recent starts have lowered his season ERA to under 6.00 for the first time in 2022.

The Cubs should really hit this guy hard.

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 Reds site Red Reporter. If you do go there to interact with Reds 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.