Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds preview, Thursday 5/7, 1:20 CT

Today’s roster move: Here Thursday notes… DEFEATING THE WINNERS: In each of the Cubs’ eight consecutive wins, their opponent has had a winning record going into the game. This is the Cubs’ 60th winning streak of at least eight games since 1901. Only once before did a streak include eight straight wi

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Today’s roster move: Here

Thursday notes…

DEFEATING THE WINNERS: In each of the Cubs’ eight consecutive wins, their opponent has had a winning record going into the game. This is the Cubs’ 60th winning streak of at least eight games since 1901. Only once before did a streak include eight straight wins over opponents that were above .500: Sept. 16-27, 1935. Those were the final nine of 21 straight wins, still the National League record. During their recent 10-game winning streak, the Cubs won only one game vs. an opponent that was above .500: the last game, at Los Angeles vs. the Dodgers. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)

STREAKING, PART 1: The Cubs have won 14 straight games at home. A win this afternoon will make it their second-longest such streak since 1901. They won 18 straight, Sept. 4-22, 1935, during a surge that lifted them to the pennant. They have had six previous streaks that ended after 14 games, most recently May 18-June 22, 2008. The earlier ones were in 1906, 1910, 1928, 1932 and 1936. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
STREAKING, PART 2: The Cubs are 18-3 in their last 21 games, their best 21-game record since they also were 18-3 from July 27-Aug. 18, 2016. That is their only span of 18-3 or better since they went 18-3 on June 30-July 18, 1945. They were last 19-2 on June 4-26, 1936. They were 20-1 in 12 overlapping spans in 1906 and four in 1935. They won 21 in a row, still the National League record, Sept. 4-27, 1935. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
CUBS vs. REDS: This is the Cubs’ 83rd series vs. the Reds at Wrigley Field since 1994, first season of the Central Division. It is the 17th of the 83 that was scheduled to be more than three games. The Cubs have swept four games just once, in 2018. The current series is the only other in which they won the first three games. They went 3-1 in four earlier series, including the most recent before the current one, in 2023. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)

Cubs lineup:

Reds lineup:

Shōta Imanaga, LHP vs. Rhett Lowder, RHP

Shōta Imanaga has just been excellent this year. A couple of starts have been not-great, but overall his numbers are outstanding, especially regarding long balls, considering his issues with them last year. He has allowed just three home runs in 41.1 innings. Keep that up!

Shōta did okay vs.

the Reds last year: two starts, 3.18 ERA, three home runs in 11.1 innings, 11 strikeouts. If he can keep the ball in the yard today — and thank heavens Cubs nemesis Eugenio Suárez is out right now! — good things should follow.

Rhett Lowder was the Reds’ No. 1 pick (seventh overall) out of Wake Forest in 2023. He made his MLB debut in 2024 and threw five shutout innings vs. the Cubs Sept. 28, 2024 at Wrigley Field. Then he missed all of last year (except for a handful of rehab starts) with elbow and oblique issues.

This year he has made seven starts and was doing pretty well until his last outing, last Saturday in Pittsburgh, when he didn’t make it out of the second inning and was part of the Reds tying a MLB record with seven straight walks (he had four of those).

The Cubs are a pretty patient hitting team, so perhaps they can use that to their advantage.

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Here is the weather forecast for the area around Wrigley Field.

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. It’s also on MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Reds market territories).

Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

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The 2026 game discussion procedure has been changed, so please take note.

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Discuss amongst yourselves.