Chicago Cubs vs. Atlanta Braves preview

Wednesday notes:

• ONE-RUN DETAILS: With their walk-off win last night, the Cubs are 10-9 in games decided by one run. They have alternated wins and losses in their last seven such games and never have won or lost more than two in a row. The Cubs’ 19 one-run games are the most played by any team this season. The Pirates have played 18, going 10-8; the Tigers, 17 (8-9); and the Brewers, 16 (9-7). The Cubs, Pirates and Phillies (10-4) are the only teams with double-digit wins. The Cubs have played more than 19 one-run games among their first 49 in only two of the past 50 seasons: 20, in 1993 (9-11) and 24 in 2015 (14-10). They also played 24 in 1919 (11-13), 21 in 1940 (9-12) and 1974 (11-10), and 20 in 1991 (13-7). This is their 10th season with 19, but only the fourth in 50 years. The previous three were 1976 (13-6), 2013 (7-12) and 2021 (10-9). (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• KEEPING IT CLOSE: The Cubs have spent each of the last 36 days either in second or first place in the NL Central and in that time have never been more than two games out of first place.
• TRIPLING IT UP: The Cubs lead the NL in triples this year with 11. Mike Tauchman became the 11th player to hit a triple this season for the Cubs with his three-bagger on Sunday vs. Pittsburgh, putting himself in a 11- way tie for the team lead as 11 different players now have one triple.
• LEIT-ING IT UP: Mark Leiter Jr., last four games since May 4: 5⅔ innings, four baserunners (0.706 WHIP), nine strikeouts in 20 batters faced. Overall for the season: 0.9 bWAR in 19 appearances.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Braves lineup:

Justin Steele, LHP vs. Max Fried, LHP

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

Justin Steele has had a rough go of it in his last two starts, after a good first outing following his return from the injured list.

The (potential) good news is that both of those starts were against the Pirates — who knows, maybe they had a great scouting report or he was tipping his pitches.

Hopefully, it goes better against Atlanta, though he had a 5.06 ERA in two starts against them last year. As you can see by the chart below, he’s started throwing other pitches besides his four-seamer and slider. That might help in the long run.

Max Fried got off to an awful start this year and had an 18.00 ERA after his first two starts.

Since then, he has a 2.22 ERA in seven starts, though the Padres hit him pretty hard last Friday (nine hits, three runs in 4⅓ innings). Hopefully the Cubs offense can get untracked enough to do something similar.

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 live streaming page for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

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The 2024 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.