Game 147 Thread / Cubs @ Astros (kinda), (1 of 2)

[Updated 10:40 by ruz]: Whoooooooo!!!!!!!

SP	Carlos Zambrano	SP	*Randy Wolf
	13-5, 3.58, 117 K, 64 BB, 173.1 IP		10-11, 4.45, 146 K, 67 BB, 174 IP

LF	Alfonso Soriano	LF	*Darin Erstad
SS	Ryan Theriot	CF	*Michael Bourn
1B	Derrek Lee	SS	Miguel Tejada
3B	Aramis Ramirez	1B	#Lance Berkman
C	Geovany Soto	3B	#Geoff Blum
RF	Mark DeRosa	RF	Hunter Pence
CF	Reed Johnson	2B	*David Newhan
2B	Ronny Cedeno	C	Humberto Quintero
P	#Carlos Zambrano	P	*Randy Wolf

About 72 hours and one hurricane ago, the Cubs held on to beat the Cardinals, 3-2, and extend their NL Central lead over the Brewers to 5 1/2 games. As the Cubs and Astros take the field tonight at Miller Park, where they have been driven by Hurricane Ike, the Cubs' lead is 6 1/2, and the Brewers are desperately trying to hold off the Phillies and Astros for the Wild Card lead.

The Astros, who must surely have many other things on their minds right now besides baseball, have won six in a row and 14 of their last 15 to claw back into post-season contention. (They were 11 games behind the Brewers as recently as 8/27.) One of the highlights of the hot streak, and one of the lowlights of the Cubs season, was the three-game sweep the Astros pulled off at Wrigley, beginning on Labor Day. Randy Wolf, tonight's Houston starter, was the winning pitcher in the series finale, throwing a complete game shutout in one of the better efforts of his career.

Carlos Zambrano returns to action tonight, having been sent to the sidelines 12 days ago with shoulder tendinitis. Z's last start, against this same Houston club in that same nasty series at Wrigley Field, only lasted five innings before he asked to come out.

Funny pre-game note via Gordon Wittenmyer's Twitter feed:

Astros sticking it to Cubs by every means possible -- including forcing the less familiar, bigger, nicer home clubhouse on them.

Rob G. Update: Apologies for the server crash or whatever it was this afternoon...should be fixed now.

Comments

Recent comments

crunch 04/17/2024 - 04:19 pm (view)

he's a low-level cubs star in the modern history of the cubs (c.zambrano, k.wood, r.dempster, etc), but that star has dimmed...and has been dimming since 2021.

2024 has been ugly the whole way and we're only in mid-april. homers aside (even though there's been 7 in 17ip) he gave up 29 hits in 20 spring innings and 31 in 17 regular season innings.

he's pretty much only got 2 pitches at this point in his career and the mix isn't fooling anyone. he threw a noticable amount more curves in his last start to add to the mix and it didn't help his issues. he don't have many moves left to break out.
Eric S 04/17/2024 - 04:40 pm (view)

Definitely needs a 10 day stint for the hangnail - have to nip those things in the bud or suffer the consequences (ie, more opponent home run derby, etc)
Eric S 04/17/2024 - 04:35 pm (view)

Thanks for checking and yeah, that’s a double ouch
Sonicwind75 04/17/2024 - 04:01 pm (view)

Believe you are correct, checked and appears Cubs have a $2.51 million obligation to Barnhart this season per Cot's Contracts. Also paying Trey Mancini $7mil this season. Ouch.
crunch 04/17/2024 - 04:27 pm (view)

m.busch had 0hr and 2 doubles when he was last at wrigley.

we'll probably see a few more of his jerseys in the seats when they return tomorrow.

wonder who will go down for taillon. hey hendricks, you got a hangnail or something?
Eric S 04/17/2024 - 04:15 pm (view)

Nice work by Wesneski with some solid defense behind him and the late tack on runs were welcome. Gladly take a 5-4 West Coast swing, particularly down two key starting pitchers … Now just don’t get swept by the Marlins for Pete’s sake.
crunch 04/17/2024 - 04:13 pm (view)

dansby takes the team lead in SB today after a SB with 2 SB total. the team has 3. madrigal has the other one.

cubs also have 7 triples, 7 players each.
crunch 04/17/2024 - 04:58 pm (view)

sure am ready for p.wisdom and m.masterboney to swap roster spots.
Eric S 04/17/2024 - 04:04 pm (view)

The fifth inning has not been kind to Wicks this season. Giving up leadoff doubles to Tucker Barnhart is also not good for business. IIRC, the Cubs are on the hook for the majority of Barnhart’s salary this season to add insult to injury (could definitely be wrong here).
Cubster 04/17/2024 - 04:11 pm (view)

Kris Bryant to IL with low back strain. He’s keeping the Rockies docs busy.

Cubs MLB Roster

Comments

Recent comments