Chicago Cubs vs. Houston Astros preview, Wednesday 4/24, 6:40 CT

The Cubs look for two in a row over Houston.

Today’s roster move: Here

Wednesday notes…

• EVENING UP WITH THE ‘STROS: With their win last night, the Cubs are .500 against the Astros (112-112) since 2000, the first season after Houston stopped playing at the House of Horrors known as the Astrodome, where the Cubs were 92-155, .372. In all games vs. the Astros through 1999, the Cubs’ percentage was .451 (223-271). The Cubs have winning records since 2000 against 5 National League rivals: the Mets (.568), Pirates (.559), Rockies (.527), Giants (.503) and Marlins (.510). They are .498 vs. the Reds, .497 vs. the Nationals and .496 vs. the Brewers. Their worst showings are .430 vs. the Dodgers, .434 vs. the Braves and .450 vs. the Phillies. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• HOME RUNS AND RUN SCORING: The Cubs hit two home runs in the first inning Tuesday night, their first multi-homer inning of the season, and they scored five runs in the first inning, their fourth five-plus run inning of 2024 so far.
• TAUCH-ING HITTING: Mike Tauchman, last six games since April 17: .450/.476/.900 (9-for-20) with three doubles, two home runs, six RBI and five runs scored.
• WHAT A RELIEF: Yency Almonte, last seven appearances since April 7: 0.00 ERA in seven innings, no hits and three walks allowed (0.429 WHIP), 10 strikeouts, one save.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Astros lineup:

Jameson Taillon, RHP vs. Spencer Arrighetti, RHP

Jameson Taillon made a spectacular season debut Friday at Wrigley Field against the Marlins. Houston will be a tougher opponent, regardless of their slow start to the season.

Current Astros hitters are batting .346 against Taillon (27-for-78) with three home runs (Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucher).

Spencer Arrighetti was the Astros’ sixth-round pick in 2021 out of Louisiana-Lafayette. He is making his third MLB start tonight. The first one was pretty bad. The second one was better, though he still threw 87 pitches in only four innings.

He does throw hard, though, as you see below, though he doesn’t always know where it’s going (five walks in seven MLB innings and fairly high walk rates in the minors).

He’s obviously never faced the Cubs or anyone on their active roster.

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

Please visit our SB Nation Astros site The Crawfish Boxes. If you do go there to interact with Astros 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 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.

Discuss amongst yourselves.