Chicago Cubs preview against Pittsburgh Pirates, Monday 9/21, 6:05 CT

News item:

I imagine the Rex Brothers will be picked for the alternate location in South Bend to make way for Jose Quintana on the active list.

Monday notes:

• About John: Jon Lester enters the start of the night after casting 993 rounds in his Cubs career, so he is seven innings as he is after becoming the eighth left-handed pitcher in Cubs history with no fewer than 1,000 rounds, and the first since Ken Holtzmann (1,447 rounds from 1965-1979) )). Most likely, this will happen on his next round, but it would be nice if he throws seven tonight. More on John below.
• Road Warriors: The Cubs have performed better offensively on the road this season … The club has scored an average of 243 (168 versus 690) with 33 Homers in 20 road matches, compared to an average of 2,1010 (211 versus 1003) with 30 Homers in 33 home games.
• More road warriors: Jason Hayward leads the Cubs’ team with an average of 358 (19 against 53) and 463 OBP on the road. Hayward, Kyle Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and David Bott have five goalkeepers on the road this season.
• Even more warriors on the roads: Cubs has scored 44 points in their last seven road matches (6.3 points per game), including four matches with at least eight runs.
• on the other side: In 12 matches since 7 September, the Cubs have allowed only eight players, while they have only won four games on their home turf. The permitted eight homeowners are tied for second in major majors during this period, while the four house strikes are the lowest for major majors during this period.

Here are today’s details.

Cubs assortment:

Pirate Squad:

Reinhold Maathai USA Today Sports

After a few rough outings, John Lester has been pretty good his last two games: 11 rounds, seven strokes, two runs, and nine strokes. He started two games against the pirates this year. One was fine, the other not much.

Throughout his career, John was the rocker who rose up when the occasion called for it. This is an occasion. Even at about 37 years old, I think he has enough to throw a good game tonight.

JT Brubaker appears for the tenth time in MLB (8th start). Two of those previous nine matches were against the Cubs, three rounds of relief on August 1 at Wrigley Field (the Cubs won the match anyway) and a good start on September 3 at PNC Park.

He’s started two matches since then, being bombarded by the White Sox and throwing well against the Reds.

These are very small sample sizes, but Brubaker has 7.08 ERA in 20⅓ rounds in PNC compared to 1.76 ERA in 15 جولة rounds.

If this continues, the cubs can break off bats tonight.

Game of the day on the Marquee Sports Network. Here is a list of providers that currently download Marquee.

Here is the full MLB.com Medical Center for the day.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com preview

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2020 Game Thread action will be the same as used in previous years. Here’s how it works.

You’ll find a game preview posted separately on the front page two hours before match time (90 minutes for some early day games after night games).

Meanwhile, the StoryStream containing the preview will also be posted on the front page, titled “Cubs vs. (Team) Game Series (Day of the Week / Date).” It will contain every thread associated with that particular game, including First Pitch Thread and all overflow strings, plus the synopsis when posted. The feed will also appear on the first page as a separate post.

You’ll also be able to find the Preview, First Pitch Thread, and all of the overflow strings in the box marked “Chicago Cubs Game Thread” at the bottom of the first page (you can also find it in the link to this section). StoryStream for each game can also be found in this section.

The Premiere Message Series will be posted in five minutes before match time, then Overflow Message Series at one hour, two hours, and 2:45 pm after the scheduled match time.

Discuss among yourselves.