Chicago Cubs vs. San Francisco Giants preview, Friday 9/9, 3:05 CT

Friday notes...

• ATTENDANCE WATCH: Through Thursday, the Cubs have announced 2,243,005 tickets sold through 69 dates, an average of 32,507 per date. They must average 29,750 tickets sold for the 12 remaining dates to have 2.6 million for the season. The last time the Cubs announced fewer than 2.6 million tickets sold in a full-capacity season (2020 and 2021 excluded) was 1997.
• HE’S HOT: Seiya Suzuki, last 18 games since August 21: .365/.437/.587 (23-for-63) with five doubles, three home runs, eight walks and nine runs scored.
• BULLPEN WOES: Cubs relievers have posted a 6.63 ERA (14 earned runs in 19 innings) over the last five games, and the Cubs have gone 1-4 in those games. Thursday’s loss was the fourth this year where the Cubs led entering the ninth inning. (Hint: That’s a lot.)
• THE NICO FILES: Nico Hoerner is third among major league shortstops with 12 defensive runs saved (Andrew Velazquez and Jeremy Pena are tied for the lead with 13). In addition, Hoerner leads the Cubs with 4.3 bWAR.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

The Giants lineup was not available at posting time. Please check the BCB Twitter feed for the Giants lineup.

Drew Smyly, LHP vs. Carlos Rodón, LHP

USA TODAY NETWORK

USA TODAY NETWORK

After an outstanding August, Drew Smyly had a stinker in his last outing, September 3 against the Cardinals. You probably shouldn’t click on that link. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Just before that great August, Smyly’s final July start was another stinker against the Giants, July 30 in San Francisco (five runs, two home runs allowed in four innings).

Just hoping this one is better.

Carlos Rodón threw seven shutout innings against the Cubs July 31 in San Francisco, allowing two hits and striking out 10.

He has made six starts since then. Five of those have been good-to-excellent. Current Cubs are hitting a small sample size .167 (9-for-54) against Rodón.

Clearly, the Cubs are doomed.

Statcast

Statcast

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 Giants market territories).

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Giants site McCovey Chronicles. If you do go there to interact with Giants 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.