Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds preview, Wednesday 8/2, 7:05 CT

Today's roster move: Here

Tuesday notes...

• TWENTY TO NINE ISN’T JUST A TIME OF DAY: The Cubs have played 22,038 regular-season games in the National League. Last night’s was the second that they won by a score of 20-9. The first was nearly 64 years ago, on August 13, 1959, at home against the Giants. There have been only two other games since 1901 that ended 20-9. The Browns beat the Tigers on August 18, 1951, and the Rockies beat the Diamondbacks, on September 23, 2003. The Browns hit one homer and the Rockies, four. The Cubs hit seven last night. The Cubs beat the Giants, 21-9, on July 7, 1886, and they beat the Reds, 20-7, on May, 1880. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• WELCOME, JEIMER: Lost in all the Cubs’ runs and home runs last night: Jeimer Candelario’s 3 singles and a double made him only the third Cub since 1901 to make FOUR hits in his first game after joining the team. Jack Doyle had four singles in an 8-7 win at St. Louis on April 19, 1901, the first day of baseball’s Modern Era. No one did it again until Emilio Bonifacio had three singles and a double on March 31, 2014, when the Cubs opened the season by losing at Pittsburgh, 1-0, in 10 innings. Candelario thus is the first Cub ever to make more than three hits in his first game as an in-season acquisition. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?: Since the Cubs were swept out of Anaheim June 8, they are 28-17, the third-best record in MLB (Braves, 30-13 and Reds, 30-16) are better. The Cubs lead all of MLB in runs during that span with 275.
• RUN SCORING: The 20-run outburst Tuesday put the Cubs fifth in MLB in runs with 539. That’s 5.04 runs per game, a pace for 816. The Cubs haven’t scored 800 runs in a season since 2017 (822), and have done it only three other times since 1970: 1998 (831), 2008 (855) and 2016 (808). All of those were playoff years.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Reds lineup:

Drew Smyly, LHP vs. Brandon Williamson, LHP

Drew Smyly returns to the rotation after a couple of games where he followed an “opener.”

He has faced the Reds twice this year and the results have not been good: 10.61 ERA, 2.143 WHIP, 16 hits and 12 runs (11 earned) in 9⅓ innings.

Be better tonight, Drew.

Brandon Williamson was the Mariners’ second-round pick in 2019 out of TCU and came to Cincinnati in the deal that sent Eugenio Suarez and Jesse Winker to Seattle.

He has made 13 MLB starts, including May 27 against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He allowed four runs in 4⅓ innings, but the Reds wound up winning the game 8-5.

Williamson’s July has been pretty good, 2.45 ERA and 1.302 WHIP in five starts.

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 Reds site Red Reporter. If you do go there to interact with Reds 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.