Pre-Gamin’: Nationals at Cubs (7:05 CT) – Lineups, Broadcast Info, Game Thread

Well, here we are: a rubber match against Max Scherzer.

It’s not the position the Cubs hoped to find themselves when this weekend began, but it’s the one they’re in now. Scherzer continues to be one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball and is arguably having his best season EVER. He’s currently maintaining essentially his highest strikeout rate ever and pairing it with his second lowest walk rate ever.

On top of that, he’s found a way to get WAY more soft contact than usual and a ton more infield fly balls. I suppose one thing he does poorly is the utter lack of grounders and close to human levels of hard contact (still better than average) – which has led to a surprisingly high number of homers (17) – but if that’s the *only* bad thing you can find about a guy … woof.

In his last start, Scherzer struck out six Braves and walked just one in 7.0 innings of one-run baseball. The Cubs will have their work cut out for them today.

Fortunately, they’ll also have a *fingers crossed-fingers crossed-fingers crossed* career re-surging Cole Hamels on the mound for his Wrigley Field debut. Hamels has been quite good for the Cubs in his two starts, including, especially, a penchant for adjusting to whatever is or isn’t working for him that day – benefits of veteran experience.

If he can hold it together one more time and the offense decides to wake up, the Cubs might just end today with a series win. We’ll see.

Game Info

Chicago Cubs (67-49) vs. Washington Nationals (60-57) – Sunday, August 12th at 7:05 CT on ESPN, 670 The Score

Game Thread and Series Preview

Your game thread is down in the comments, so let’s have some good, clean (safe-for-work) fun today.

  • The Series Preview lives here.
  • The Lineup Discussion lives here.
  • Starting Pitchers

    Cubs: Cole Hamels (L): 0.82 ERA, 2.52 FIP; 3.67 K/BB

    versus

    Nationals: Max Scherzer (R): 2.28 ERA, 2.72 FIP; 5.54 K/BB

    Washington Nationals:

    1. Trea Turner, SS
    2. Juan Soto, LF
    3. Bryce Harper, RF
    4. Ryan Zimmermann, 1B
    5. Daniel Murphy, 2B
    6. Mark Reynolds, 3B
    7. Michael A. Taylor, CF
    8. Matt Wieters, C
    9. Max Scherzer, P

    Chicago Cubs Lineup:

    1. Anthony Rizzo, 1B
    2. Javy Baez, 3B
    3. Ben Zobrist, 2B
    4. Jason Heyward, RF
    5. Albert Almora Jr., CF
    6. Kyle Schwarber, LF
    7. Willson Contreras, C
    8. Cole Hamels, P
    9. Addison Russell, SS

    written by

    Michael Cerami began covering the Chicago Cubs for Bleacher Nation as a part-time contributor in 2015. One year later, he joined Bleacher Nation full-time, covering the Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball. Today, Michael runs Bleacher Nation, contributing as a writer (Cubs, MLB) and an editor for all sections of the site, including the Chicago Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks, as well as MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL. In 2019, Michael was the co-host of NBC Sports Chicago's Cubs Post-Game Show Outside the Ivy. You can find him on Twitter/X @Michael_Cerami

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