Cubs vs. Brewers Series Preview
Cubs (2-1; 1st in NL Central) vs. Brewers (1-2; 4th in NL Central) at Miller Park
Head-to-head Record
First meeting in 2009. Cubs won 9 of 16 games between the teams in 2008.
Pitching matchups
Friday, 3:05pm
Rich Harden (0-0) vs. Braden Looper (0-0)
Saturday, 6:05pm
Carlos Zambrano (1-0, 1.50) vs. David Bush (0-0, 18.00)
Sunday, 7:05pm
Ryan Dempster (0-0, 3.00) vs. Jeff Suppan (0-1, 13.50)
Hot
Cubs
Hard to say anyone is "hot" after just three games, but the big bats came out in Houston after a couple of lackluster games. Ryan Theriot (5/9, .556) and Aramis Ramirez (6/14, .429 with team-high 5 RBI) are off to good starts and hit safely in all three games in Houston. Kosuke Fukudome (4 hits Wednesday night), Mike Fontenot (5/13, .385), and Alfonso Soriano (5/15, .333, 2 HR) have also contributed. Zambrano had an outstanding, highly controlled start in the opener, yielding just one run in 6+ innings.
Brewers
Milwaukee opened on the road in San Francisco, where Mike Cameron went 4-for-7 with 6 BB and a homer. Ryan Braun, 4-for-12 including a pair of doubles, was the only other Brewer regular who did much hitting. Yovanni Gallardo, not pitching in this series, homered against Randy Johnson on Wednesday, the first time Johnson has ever been touched for a home run by an opposing pitcher.
Not So Hot
Cubs
Milton Bradley is hitless in 9 AB so far, though he has drawn a team-high 4 BB. Derrek Lee was 1-for-6 Wednesday night with 3 K's and is hitting just .154 (2-for-13).
Brewers
Against the Giants, Weeks,Fielder, Hart, Hardy, and Kendall went a combined 7-for-57 with 17 K's.
Other notes: The series opener matches the sometimes brilliant and generally brittle Harden against the former Cardinal, Looper, whose Brewer Spring Training debut was delayed until late March by a muscle pull; when he pitched, he didn't pitch well...In case you forgot, the last time the teams met was on the final weekend of the '08 season, when the Brewers took two of three from the Cubs to clinch the NL Wild Card...This series will mark the first matchup between the two teams since former, WGN extra guy in the radio booth, Cory Provus, left 'GN to start calling Brewers games. I thought Provus did a nice job in Chicago, but since he bailed out on us, he is officially dead to me.
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