Chicago Cubs vs. Los Angeles Dodgers Game 1 preview, Saturday 5/7, 12:05 CT

The Cubs host the team currently atop the NL West.

SITE NOTE: There will be one StoryStream with all the threads for both games of the doubleheader today. There won’t be a full recap of Game 1 today, but there will be a game preview for Game 2 that will post on the front page an hour or so before that game begins at 6:40 p.m. CT. A recap of both games will post here tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. CT.

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Today’s roster move: Here

Saturday notes…

• STREAKING: The Cubs have scored at least one run in a current major league-high 70 consecutive games. If they score in today’s first game, it will match the most recent such stretch, 71 games, from May 11-July 31, 2019.
• BULLPEN THINGS: Rowan Wick has not allowed an earned run in his last eight appearances, covering eight innings. David Robertson is one of three relievers in the majors (also Dillon Peters and Drew Smith) to have tossed at least 11 scoreless innings this season.
• WISDOM THINGS: Over his last 17 games, Patrick Wisdom is batting .321/.387/.714 (18-for-56) with seven doubles and five home runs.
• THROWING STRIKES: In his brief career (25 appearances across 2021-22), Scott Effross has faced 102 batters and walked just two of them. He has a K rate of 10.4 per nine innings and a walk rate of 0.7 per nine innings.

This comic strip seems appropriate for today:

Comics Kingdom

Here are today’s Game 1 particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Dodgers lineup:

Drew Smyly, LHP vs. Clayton Kershaw, LHP

Drew Smyly returns from bereavement leave for his first start since April 28 in Atlanta. He’s pitched only once this year in Wrigley Field, April 22 against the Pirates, and that was his “worst” start of the season. It wasn’t all that awful, four runs in five innings.

As noted in the series preview, the Dodgers hit slightly worse vs. LHP (.657 OPS) than RHP (.736 OPS) coming into this game.

Among current Dodgers, Mookie Betts has hit him well: 9-for-25 (.360), three doubles, two home runs.

Smyly and Freddie Freeman were teammates in Atlanta last year. Freeman is 0-for-2 against Smyly, lifetime.

Clayton Kershaw, as good as he has been against just about everyone, has not pitched well in Wrigley Field, where he has a 4.74 lifetime ERA in four starts.

Pretty much all of that was against guys who aren’t on the Cubs anymore. Willson Contreras (3-for-11, a home run) is the only Cub who’s faced Kershaw more than a handful of at-bats.

Kershaw has been mostly great this year, including seven perfect innings in his season debut in 38-degree weather in Minnesota. Maybe he likes cold weather.

Statcast

Statcast

Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network. Here’s a list of providers currently carrying Marquee. This game will also be on MLB Network (outside the Cubs and Dodgers market territories).

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Dodgers site True Blue LA. If you do go there to interact with Dodgers 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 2022 Game Thread procedure will be like last years, 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.