Sunday notes:
- SPLITTING THE DIFFERENCE: This is the 29th of the Cubs’ 49 series in which they have split the first two games. There was no third game in one series. In the others, they are 15-12 overall and 7-3 after having won, then lost. At home, they are 6-5 overall and 3-3 after having won, then lost. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
- MAGIC NUMBERS: The Cubs’ magic number to clinch a postseason spot is 6 and to clinch the top wild-card spot over the Padres, it’s 11. The Cubs and Padres split their season series, so the tiebreaker between them is the record within the team’s division. The Padres are 28-20 vs. NL West teams with four games remaining (one vs. Rockies, three vs. D-backs, all at home). The Cubs are 24-18 vs. NL Central teams with 10 games remaining (three vs. Pirates and four vs. Reds on the road, three vs. Cardinals at home). If the teams are still tied after that, the next tiebreaker is the team’s record against other teams in their own league.
- THE NICO FILES: Nico Hoerner is on an eight-game hitting streak in which he is batting .452/.514/.742 (14-for-31) with four doubles, a triple, a home run, four walks, four stolen bases and nine runs scored.
- THIS DAY IN CUBS HISTORY: Anthony Rizzo homered twice and Jon Lester threw eight shutout innings as the Cubs blanked the Cardinals 7-0 in St. Louis. The win lowered the Cubs’ magic number to clinch the NL Central to 1. It happened nine years ago today, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016.
Cubs lineup:
Rays lineup:
Shōta Imanaga, LHP vs. Adrian Houser, RHP
Shōta Imanaga hasn’t been bad over his last eight starts — 3.35 ERA, 0.765 WHIP — but he hasn’t been as dominant as earlier in the year. Mostly, it’s the home runs — 10 in 51 innings over those eight starts — that have caused him trouble.
So keep the ball in the ballpark. That would make for a pleasant
Sunday afternoon for Shōta.
He has never faced the Rays or anyone on their active roster.
The Cubs scored three runs off Adrian Houser in 6.2 innings July 25, when Houser was still with the White Sox. All of those runs came in the seventh inning on a home run by Reese McGuire, otherwise Houser was totally dominant. (Imanaga was his opponent that night and got pounded by Sox hitters, for whatever that’s worth.)
That outing was mostly an audition for teams looking to trade for Houser. The Cubs were one of those teams, but got outbid by the Rays. There was some hand-wringing among Cubs fans after that, but Houser has not been the same guy with the Rays at all, posting a 4.93 ERA and 1.330 WHIP in seven starts. That’s more in line with what Houser had done the previous three seasons.
Houser pitched for Craig Counsell for seven years in Milwaukee, so the Cubs should be quite familiar with Houser at this point. Hopefully they hit him hard this afternoon.
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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 live streaming page for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
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Discuss amongst yourselves.
