Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals preview, Saturday 7/29, 6:15 CT

Today’s roster move: Here

There is a chance of thunderstorms interrupting this game, per this forecast, so here’s the St. Louis area radar for you to keep handy.

Saturday notes...

• STREAKING, PART 1: The Cubs’ seven-game winning streak matches their longest in the past seven seasons. They also won seven straight in September 2017, August 2018, April-May 2019, August-September 2021 and September 25-October 2, 2022. Their last longer streak was 11 in a row, July 31-August 12, 2016. They had won eight straight in May of that year, and had had streaks of nine and eight wins in 2015. This is their 15th streak of at least seven wins since 2000, including 10 of exactly seven. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• STREAKING, PART 2: Since the Cubs were swept out of Anaheim June 8, they are 26-15 (.634). That’s tied for the third-best record in MLB since that date with the Phillies, behind only the Reds (28-14) and Braves (27-12). If they continue to play at a .634 percentage the rest of the year, they will wind up with 89 wins.
• DEFEATING THE CARDINALS: With their win last night, the Cubs clinched the season series against the Cardinals, as they lead seven games to four with two remaining. A year ago, they were 6-13. This is the first season that the Cubs have won the series since 2017, when they were 14-5. They were 9-10 in 2018, 2019 and 2021. The teams split 10 games in 2020. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• ANOTHER WINNING MONTH: The Cubs are 14-9 in July and with three games remaining this month, have clinched a winning month. It’s their second consecutive winning month, as they were 14-11 in June. The last time before this year that the Cubs had two straight winning calendar months was August (15-12) and September (14-12) in 2020.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Cardinals lineup:

Jameson Taillon, RHP vs. Adam Wainwright, RHP

Adam Wainwright vs. Jameson Taillon. What year is this, 2017?

Wainwright’s been around so long that one of his teammates his rookie year was Larry Walker, who’s 56 and has been in the Hall of Fame for two years.

Anyway.

Jameson Taillon has a 1.86 ERA and 0.987 WHIP over his last three starts. Small sample size? Maybe, but he appears to have turned a corner. He threw 5⅔ innings against the Cardinals last Sunday at Wrigley Field, allowed just one run, and struck out six.

Keep up the good work, Jamo. (Yes, now that he’s good again we can start using his nickname here.)

This is Adam Wainwright’s 50th — and probably last, as I suspect he’ll retire at the end of the year — career start against the Cubs.

That’s now the second-most starts by anyone against the Cubs in the divisional play era, passing Bob Forsch. Only Steve Carlton had more (65).

The Cubs absolutely lit up Wainwright in London June 24 — 11 hits and seven runs in three innings. Ian Happ homered twice.

After one more lousy start, Wainwright hit the IL with a 7.66 ERA. He’s returned and thrown reasonably well against the Diamondbacks (five innings, two runs).

I’d be perfectly happy sending him out of the game early from his last start against the Cubs.

Statcast

Statcast

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. You can find out if Marquee is available via a provider in your area here.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Cardinals site Viva el Birdos. If you do go there to interact with Cardinals 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.