Chicago Cubs vs. Oakland Athletics preview, Wednesday 4/19, 2:37 CT

Wednesday notes...

• RECORD TYING: The Cubs have allowed a total of seven runs in their past five games. That ties the team record for fewest allowed in any span of five consecutive games since 1901! Who knew? They have had 141 such spans, 32 of which overlapped one another. 80 of them came during the Dead Ball Era. 37 have come since the end of World War II, including 12 this century. 10 of those 12 have happened since 2015: two that year, one in 2016, two each in 2017, 2018 and 2022, and the one this year. Seven runs also is the Cubs’ record for six consecutive games. They have done that 42 times, eight of them overlapping. All but six came in 1935 or earlier. They did it twice in 1963, then once each in 1969, 1972, 2000 and 2018. (Courtesy JohnW53)
• NONE IF BY DAY: The A’s have yet to win a day game this year. Entering today’s action they are 3-7 in night games and 0-8 in games played in sunshine. The Cubs are 4-4 in afternoon contests (1-0 in road day games) and 6-2 at night.
• SEIYA SOON: Seiya Suzuki’s numbers on this road trip (all five games he’s played this year): .350/.458/.500 (7-for-20), a home run, three runs scored, four walks (three of which came Tuesday night).
• LOVE THAT PITCHING: The Cubs’ overall team ERA of 3.19 ranks second in the National League (behind the Brewers) and fifth overall in MLB entering Wednesday’s game. The starters rank first in the N.L. at 2.74 and third overall behind the Rays and Twins.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

The A’s lineup was not available at posting time. Please check the BCB Twitter feed for the A's lineup.

Justin Steele, LHP vs. Mason Miller, RHP

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports

Justin Steele is off to the fine start we all thought he had in him — a 1.42 ERA (three earned runs in 19 innings) with 19 strikeouts. He was the first Cubs starter to throw seven innings this year when he did it last Friday against the Dodgers.

He’s never faced the A’s and only a handful of current A’s batters have faced him, none for more than four at-bats, so there’s zero predictive value out of that.

The A’s are calling up Mason Miller to make his major league debut this afternoon.

Miller was the A’s third-round pick in 2021 out of Gardner-Webb University. Injury issues limited his innings last year and overall, he has thrown just 45⅓ total professional innings, with 16⅔ of those coming in last year’s Arizona Fall League. In the other 28⅔ innings, he’s walked six and struck out 53, which is impressive, but just 10 of those innings have come above Double-A.

Per MLB Pipeline, Miller is the A’s No. 3 prospect.

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 Athletics site Athletics Nation. If you do go there to interact with A’s 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 2023 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.