Friday notes:
- THE .500 CLUB: By beating the Cubs last night, the Reds raised their record to 77-76, so tonight’s game will be the Cubs’ first in 26, nearly one-sixth of a season, against an opponent with a winning record. The last was a 4-1 loss to the Brewers at home on Aug. 21. In the 25 games since then against sub-.500 teams, the Cubs went 15-10, a .600 winning percentage. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
- MAGIC NUMBER: The Cubs’ magic number to clinch the top wild-card spot over the Padres remains at 5 after the Cubs’ loss Thursday. Thus if the Cubs go 5-4 in their nine remaining games, they’ll host the wild-card series regardless of what the Padres do. If for any reason a tiebreaker is needed, it will work this way. The Cubs and Padres split their season series, so the tiebreaker between them is the record within the team’s division. The Padres are 29-20 vs. NL West teams with three games remaining (three vs. D-backs at home). The Cubs are 27-19 vs. NL Central teams with six games remaining (three 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’s 12-game hitting streak ended Thursday but in 23 games since Aug. 23 he is batting .363/.416/.549 (33-for-91) with nine doubles, a triple, two home runs, five stolen bases, eight walks and 20 runs scored.
- WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?: Since Sept. 9 the Cubs are 7-2 and have allowed just 21 runs in the nine games (2.33 per game), the fewest runs allowed by any NL team over that span.
Cubs lineup:
Reds lineup:
Shōta Imanaga, LHP vs. Nick Lodolo, LHP
Shōta Imanaga has given up three runs in each of his last four starts, and thrown at least six innings in three of those four. That’s an average of a “quality start” over that time frame, though the 4.50 ERA isn’t great, and seven of the 12 runs allowed have come via home runs — all but one of those seven a solo
shot.
In the 24 innings covered above, Shōta has issued two walks and struck out 20, including a season-high nine in his last outing against the Rays.
So he hasn’t pitched badly, really… but that’s not really good, either. The last time he faced the Reds, Aug. 5 at Wrigley Field, he allowed three hits and one run. That’d work for this one.
Nick Lodolo has made two starts against the Cubs this year. He threw five shutout innings against them May 31 at Wrigley Field, but they scored three in five innings off him at GABP May 25, including a home run by Reese McGuire (that was McGuire’s two-homer debut game for the Cubs).
The A’s hit Lodolo pretty hard in his last start including three home runs, so perhaps the Cubs offense can continue that.
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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. It’s also on MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Reds market territories).
Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.
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 2025 Game Thread procedure will be identical to last year’s.
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.
