Chicago Cubs vs. Detroit Tigers preview, Wednesday 7/22, 7:10 CT

Wednesday notes…

• SPLITTING THE DIFFERENCE: This is the 17th of the Cubs’ 33 series in which they split the first two games. They are 8-7 in third games, with one postponed by rain. After losing, then winning, they are 6-4, including 1-2 at home. The win was last Sunday vs. the Twins. They had lost to the Nationals on March 29 and to the Giants on June 7. The Cubs are 8-1-1 in their last 10 series and 16-14-2 for the year. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• RUN DIFFERENTIAL: The Cubs have outscored their opponents by 20 runs, 33-13, in their last four games, boosting their run differential to +69, a season high. They were +56 on May 8, after the last of their second streak of 10 straight wins, 7-1, at Texas. They were -2 after a 3-2 loss at Colorado on June 10, +63 after a 23-3 demolition of the Padres at home on July 1, then +44 after a 3-0 loss at home to the Cardinals on July 4. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: The Cubs have made 11, 12, 11 and 11 hits in their last four games. They had not had double-digit hits in more than three consecutive games since they had four in a row April 21-24. Last night’s game was their 75th since then. They did it in five straight games April 12-17. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• TODAY IN CUBS HISTORY: Sammy Sosa’s three-run homer highlighted a six-run eighth that broke open a 3-3 tie, and the Cubs went on to defeat the Expos 9-5 at Wrigley Field. It happened 28 years ago today, Wednesday, July 22, 1998.

Cubs lineup:

Tigers lineup:

Colin Rea, RHP vs. Keider Montero, RHP

Colin Rea wound up with a “quality start,” three earned runs in six innings, in his last outing last Friday vs. the Twins. That’s due to an error that made one run unearned — but really, the outing was pretty good, marred by one bad pitch that went for a three-run homer by Ryan Jeffers.

Rea hasn’t faced the Tigers since April 24, 2023 and that’s so long ago that Phil Maton’s brother Nick was batting cleanup for Detroit, and his opponent was … Matthew Boyd.

Thus Rea has only faced a handful of Tigers and only for a couple of PA each. Maybe that’ll be to his advantage.

Rea has been much better at Wrigley (2.94 ERA in nine games, eight starts) than on the road (6.45 ERA in 11 games, eight starts).

Keider Montero was in the Tigers rotation until the end of June and was doing reasonably well, but has been throwing in relief since then. This will be his first start since June 28. He hasn’t thrown more than 59 pitches in an outing since then.

Last year he allowed four runs to the Cubs in 5.2 innings as the “bulk guy” after an opener, June 7, 2025 in Detroit. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch and Matt Shaw homered off him.

Here is the weather forecast for the area around Wrigley Field.

Today’s game is on ESPN (full national broadcast, no blackouts).

Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Tigers site Bless You Boys. If you do go there to interact with Tigers 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 2026 game discussion procedure has been changed, so please take note.

You’ll find the game preview, like this one, 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.

The Live! (formerly “First Pitch”) thread will still post at five minutes to game time. It will also post to the front page. That will be the only live game discussion thread. After the game, the recap and Heroes and Goats will also live on the front page as separate posts.

You will also be able to find the preview, Live! thread, recap and Heroes and Goats in this section link. The StoryStream for each game can also be found in that section.

Discuss amongst yourselves.