Game 83 Thread / Cubs @ Giants (1 of 4)
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SP | *Ted Lilly |
SP |
*Barry Zito |
5-8, 5.40, 95 K, 36 BB, 98.2 IP |
3-11, 5.91, 44 K, 48 BB, 80.2 IP | ||
RF |
*Kosuke Fukudome |
LF |
*Fred Lewis |
SS |
Ryan Theriot |
3B |
Jose Castillo |
1B |
Derrek Lee | RF |
#Randy Winn |
C |
Geovany Soto | C |
Bengie Molina |
3B |
Mark DeRosa |
CF |
Aaron Rowand |
CF |
*Jim Edmonds | 1B |
Rich Aurilia |
LF |
Matt Murton |
2B |
Travis Denker |
2B |
Ronny Cedeno | SS | #Emmanuel Burriss |
P |
*Ted Lilly | P | *Barry Zito |
Well that whole American League thing was no good...the Cubs went a paltry 6-9 against what was considered to be a soft interleague schedule at the beginning of the year.
Now it's back to the NL and back to the NL West, whom the Cubs have collectively beaten at an 18-5 clip. They'll get the offensively-challenged Giants tonight and it'll be up to Ted Lilly to try to keep them challenged. Lilly's overall numbers have been disappointing this year, but he's managed a 3.21 ERA in June up to this point. Most of his struggles this year can be attributed to a tendency to give up the gopher ball, but there's some hope that'll correct itself.
If you take a look at some of the numbers on his Fangraph's page, his K/9 rate has actually gone up this year, but so has his walk rate, leaving him with a K:BB rate at 2.64 this year, down from 3.16 last year. That's still respectable though along with a 1.32 WHIP for this season. His BABIP is at .293 which is a bit higher than the .273 he gave up last year, but in the general vicinity of where you expect it for most pitchers. His HR/9 rate though is 1.64 this year, well up on his career mark of 1.38 and his 2007 season of 1.22. That can be attributed to a bit of bad luck though as 13.0% of the flyballs he's given up have ended up in the seats. The only time he ever gave up something in that range was 2005 when he also had a 1.64 HR/9 rate and became the proud owner of a 5.59 ERA that season. So it's possible that it will repeat itself, but most pitchers give up home runs around 10-11% of the flyballs hit off them, so it's also quite possible that we'll continue to enjoy the better Lilly the rest of the way.
Cubnut: Aramis Ramirez will miss the first three games of this series, having returned home to the D.R. to "tend to the birth of a son."
With A-Ram out of the picture, Geovany Soto gets his second crack this year at hitting cleanup, and with DeRo covering third base and the lefthander Zito pitching, Matt Murton gets the nod in leftfield. Murton has hit better than .300 against lefties in each of his big league seasons, but so far, in this aimless season for the redhead, he is just 1-for-14 against southpaws.
Above, Rob refers to the Cubs' lackluster performance in their just concluded interleague play. The thing is, the Cubs were right in step with the NL as a whole. Pending the makeup of at least one rained out game that I know of, between the Yankees and Pirates, the National League went 102-149 (.406) this year against the American League.
The All-Star game should be fun.
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