{"id":664760,"date":"2026-04-05T15:04:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/664760\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T15:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:04:25","slug":"chicago-cubs-vs-cleveland-guardians-doubleheader-preview-sunday-4-5-1210-ct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/664760\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs vs. Cleveland Guardians doubleheader preview, Sunday 4\/5, 12:10 CT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s roster moves: Here<\/a><\/p>\n

I had not remembered a traditional, non-split doubleheader on the road for the Cubs in recent years. The last such doubleheader at Wrigley Field was Thursday, Aug. 3, 2006 vs. the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n

So, naturally, I asked BCB\u2019s JohnW53 if he knew. Of course he did! Here\u2019s the answer.<\/p>\n

The Cubs have played 15 doubleheaders on the road since the one at home vs. the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n

Fourteen of those were day\/night split doubleheaders.<\/p>\n

The exception was on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2019, at Washington, when they played a twi-night, single-admission doubleheader. The first game started at 5:15 and ended at 8:00. Then there was an hour before the second game because the Nationals were honoring Ryan Zimmerman. The second game ran 3:15 and did not end until 12:15 a.m.<\/p>\n

The Cubs lost both games, 10-3 and 6-5. Then the Sunday game was rained out, forcing the Cubs to return for an afternoon game the following Thursday. Anthony Rizzo flew to the game in uniform, in protest. The Cubs won that game, 4-3, but Pedro Strop was injured trying to beat out an infield grounder and was lost for the season.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how our various threads are going to work for posts on both games this afternoon. There will be the \u201cLive!\u201d thread as usual, five minutes before the first pitch of Game 1. I will post a recap as soon as possible after Game 1, then another \u201cLive!\u201d thread will follow five minutes before Game 2. A recap of Game 2 will post in the early evening, after that one\u2019s complete.<\/p>\n

Get ready for six (or so) hours of Cubs baseball this afternoon!<\/p>\n

Sunday doubleheader notes\u2026<\/p>\n

THE SUNDAY DOUBLEHEADER: The Cubs have played 52 doubleheaders — 31 at home and 21 on the road — since they last played a single-admission doubleheader on a Sunday: April 28, 2002, when they lost at home to the Dodgers, 5-4 and 4-1. The breakdown of those 52 by day and site: Monday: 4 (3 home\/1 road). Tuesday 14 (10\/4). Wednesday: 9 (6\/3). Thursday: 3 (1\/2). Friday: 6 (2\/4). Saturday: 16 (9\/7). The Cubs played a day\/night doubleheader at home against the Cardinals on Sunday, July 12, 2009, in which they won, 7-3, then lost, 4-2. They have played 38 doubleheaders on other days of the week since then, 24 at home and 14 on the road. (Courtesy BCB\u2019s JohnW53)DOUBLEHEADER DOINGS: Over the last five seasons, the Cubs have played 13 doubleheaders, as follows\u2026 2021: four (swept one, split one, were swept twice). All the games in the 2021 doubleheaders were scheduled as seven-inning games. One of those (a win in Game 2, May 4 vs. the Dodgers<\/a>) went nine innings, as it was tied after seven. 2022: six (split two, were swept four times). 2023: none. 2024: two (split one, were swept once). 2025: one (swept the Brewers!).THEY\u2019D NEVER DO THIS NOW: In a four-day stretch in 1967, the Cubs played four doubleheaders<\/a>. Then the next year they played four doubleheaders in an eight-day span<\/a>. Randy Hundley started and caught every inning of seven of the eight 1967 games and played the last three innings of the other one, and in 1968 started and caught every inning of seven of the eight games. No wonder his knees gave out.OR THIS, EITHER: The most doubleheaders the Cubs ever played in a season was 39, in 1944. The last time they played 30 doubleheaders in a season was 1957. They last played at least 20 in 1967 (21) and last played at least 10 in 1979 (11). (Thanks to John for the last two of those.) This article by Chris Jaffe<\/a> on doubleheaders in the 20th Century is from 2010, but still contains some fascinating doubleheader history.<\/p>\n

Guardians lineup for Game 1:<\/p>\n

Edward Cabrera, RHP vs. Slade Cecconi, RHP<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Edward Cabrera was the originally scheduled starter for Sunday\u2019s single game. Instead, he\u2019ll throw the first game of the doubleheader today.<\/p>\n

Cabrera was nails in his first 2026 start last Monday against the Angels<\/a>, allowing just one hit and one walk, striking out five.<\/p>\n

Last year while with the Marlins he made one start vs. the Guardians, Aug. 14 in Cleveland<\/a>, and got hit pretty hard \u2014 seven hits, five runs in 5.1 innings. Let\u2019s hope this one goes better.<\/p>\n

Slade Cecconi was supposed to start the Saturday game that was rained out. Instead, he\u2019ll go in the first game of the doubleheader this afternoon.<\/p>\n

Cecconi got torched by the Mariners in his first 2026 start last Sunday in Seattle<\/a> \u2014 4.1 innings, six runs allowed. He threw 93 pitches and, as noted, did not finish the fifth inning.<\/p>\n

He has never faced the Cubs. Only two Cubs \u2014 Alex Bregman (0-for-4) and Michael Conforto (0-for-3) have ever faced him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are the pitchers scheduled to start Game 2 of this doubleheader.<\/p>\n

Sh\u014dta Imanaga, LHP vs. Parker Messick, LHP<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sh\u014dta Imanaga\u2019s first 2026 start wasn\u2019t terrible\u2026 but it wasn\u2019t all that good, either. He allowed one home run, unfortunately that came with two men on base. Hopefully he can keep the ball in the ballpark this evening. He did strike out seven Nationals in that first outing.<\/p>\n

His outing last year against the Guardians, July 2, 2025 at Wrigley Field<\/a>, was a similar game to his first start this year, except with more home runs (three solo homers). So, again, keeping the ball in the yard would be the key to his success, I\u2019d think.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll note in the graphic below that he averaged 92.1 miles per hour on his fastball in his first start this year. That\u2019s up significantly from last year\u2019s 90.8 miles per hour. If he can maintain that, this should be a good year for Sh\u014dta.<\/p>\n

Parker Messick was the Guardians\u2019 second-round pick out of Florida State in 2022. He made his MLB debut last year with seven pretty good starts, and threw six shutout innings against the Dodgers last Monday in Los Angeles<\/a>, so that\u2019s also pretty good.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s obviously never faced the Cubs. He did face Alex Bregman last year; Bregman went 1-for-3 (a double).<\/p>\n

Also, \u201cParker Messick\u201d sounds like a comic-book superhero\u2019s alter ego name.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is the weather forecast for the Cleveland area.<\/a><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s games are both on Marquee Sports Network.<\/p>\n

Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.<\/a><\/p>\n

MLB.com Gameday for Game 1<\/a><\/p>\n

MLB.com Gameday for Game 2<\/a><\/p>\n

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Game 1<\/a><\/p>\n

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Game 2<\/a><\/p>\n

Please visit our SB Nation Guardians site Covering The Corner<\/a>. If you do go there to interact with Guardians 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.<\/p>\n

The 2026 game discussion procedure has been changed, so please take note. See the top of this post for some posting differences from those below for this doubleheader day.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll 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).<\/p>\n

At the same time, a StoryStream containing the preview will also post on the front page, titled \u201cCubs vs. (Team) (Day of week\/date) game threads.\u201d It will contain every post related to that particular game.<\/p>\n

The Live! (formerly \u201cFirst Pitch\u201d) 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.<\/p>\n

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

Discuss amongst yourselves.<\/p>\n

Fewer adsCreate community posts<\/a>Comment on articles, community postsRec comments, community postsNew, improved notifications system!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s roster moves: Here I had not remembered a traditional, non-split doubleheader on the road for the Cubs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,81311,135,51,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-664760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago-cubs-game-information","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-guardians","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116352720106952286","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}