Chicago Cubs vs. Minnesota Twins preview, Saturday 5/13, 1:10 CT

Saturday notes...

• RUN SCORING: The Cubs’ win Friday night was only their third this season in which they trailed after six innings. They have lost 11 such games. In Friday’s game, they went ahead with two runs in the seventh, did not score in the eighth and added three runs in the ninth.

For the season, the eighth has been their most productive inning, with 34 runs scored. That is 9 more than their next-best total, 25, in the fourth. They have outscored their opponents,= 16-14, in the seventh, and 34-12 in the eighth. In the ninth, they have been outscored, 19-15. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)

• MORE RUN SCORING: The Cubs have scored at least one run in each of their first 38 games in 2023, just the fourth time in the expansion era (since 1961) the team has been on the board in each of its first 38 contests. The longest Cubs season-opening streaks in this span: 47 games in 1995, 43 games in 2020 and 40 games in 2012, and since the Cubs scored in their last 10 games of 2022, their current streak is 48 games. The franchise record is 127, set in 1958-59.
• EVEN MORE RUN SCORING: The Cubs are one of just four teams in the majors this season to have scored at least one run in every game played thus far in 2023. The others: Angels, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays.
• RUN PREVENTION: The Cubs’ team ERA of 3.38 is tops in the National League and fifth in MLB (behind the Rays, Astros, Mariners and Twins). They are tied with the Blue Jays for the most quality starts in MLB with 20 and have allowed the second-fewest runs of any team, just 137. The Rays are first with 124 runs allowed.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

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

Hayden Wesneski, RHP vs. Joe Ryan, RHP

Hayden Wesneski, last five starts: 2.22 ERA, 0.918 WHIP, just two walks in 28⅓ innings. This is starting to look very much like the Wesneski we saw last September. The walk number is particularly impressive.

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

Joe Ryan is rocking the Dylan Cease-style mustache. It looks very 1970s.

He’s been consistently good this year and has shut down some pretty good offenses (Yankees, Astros). He threw five good innings vs. the Cubs September 22, 2021 at Wrigley Field. Just to give you an idea of how much the Cubs have changed since then: Of the 17 Cubs who played in that game, just four (Ian Happ, Patrick Wisdom, Nico Hoerner and Adbert Alzolay) are currently on the Cubs’ active roster.

So it will be a very different Cubs team that will face Ryan this afternoon.

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 Twins site Twinkie Town. If you do go there to interact with Twins 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.