Chicago Cubs vs. Washington Nationals preview, Wednesday 5/3, 6:05 CT

Not worth an entire article for this transaction. Farewell, Luis. What will you remember about the Cubs’ Luis Torrens Era?

There doesn’t appear to be any additional news about Yan Gomes at this time.

Wednesday notes...

• ONE STREAK ENDS, ANOTHER CONTINUES: While Nico Hoerner’s on-base streak was snapped at 26 games last night, Cody Bellinger extended his streak to 19 games. That ties the longest streak of his career. He reached in 19 straight twice, in 2019, his MVP season. In his first eight games as a Cub, Bellinger’s slash line was .167/.265/.531, with one extra-base hit, a home run. In 18 games since then, he has slashed .354/.421/.739, with five doubles, a triple and five home runs. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• DON’T WALK: Cubs pitching has gone consecutive game without issuing a walk for the first time since July 30-31, 2019, at St. Louis. In fact, that 2019 pitching staff did that twice, also doing so May 7-8 vs. Miami. The last time the Cubs staff went three straight games without a walk? That was almost 39 years ago in 1984 when the staff didn’t issue a walk for three straight games, September 23 (second game) at St. Louis and September 24-25, at Pittsburgh.
• RISP-Y BUSINESS: Despite the Cubs’ poor 6-for-41 (.146) mark with RISP on this road trip, overall this year the Cubs have batted .283 (72-for-254) with RISP, third-best in the NL and sixth in MLB. Nico Hoerner leads the club, posting a .348 average (8-for-23) with 15 RBI with RISP.
• WORDS OF WISDOM: Patrick Wisdom’s 11th home run Tuesday tied him with Pete Alonso and Max Muncy for the MLB lead. Wisdom is the eighth Cub to hit 11 home runs in the team’s first 29 games of a season and the first since Alfonso Soriano hit 11 home runs in the team’s first 28 games of 2011.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Nationals lineup:

Marcus Stroman, RHP vs. Jake Ervin, RHP

Marcus Stroman has made six starts this year — five good-to-excellent, one clunker against the Dodgers, to whom he served up three home runs. No other team has hit a long ball against Stroman this year in 26⅓ total innings.

In two starts against the Nats last year he posted a 3.72 ERA and 1.448 WHIP.

One thing that’s good for Stroman is that Corey Dickerson is on the injured list. That’s not good for Dickerson, but he is a .447/.458/.766 (21-for-47) lifetime hitter against Stroman with six doubles and three home runs.

Jake Ervin is a 6-6 righthander who was the Nationals’ fourth-round pick in 2018 out of the University of Oklahoma. (Comparison point: The Cubs chose Ethan Roberts in that round.) He will be making his MLB debut in this game.

Ervin split last year between High-A Wilmington and Double-A Harrisburg. In 24 starts in 2022 he posted a 3.83 ERA and 1.142 WHIP with 107 strikeouts and just 28 walks in 103⅓ innings. This year is his first at the Triple-A level. For Triple-A Rochester he has made five starts and posted a 5.64 ERA with a higher walk rate (11 in 22⅓ innings).

He has obviously never faced the Cubs or anyone on their active roster. Here’s a bit more on him from the website District on Deck.

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 Nationals site Federal Baseball. If you do go there to interact with Nationals 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.