Another Rich Hill start another brilliant Rich Hill performance. I don't know what to say. He's certainly established himself as a quality starter in the league and is certainly going to be in our rotation next season. I guess Jumbo did good for not trading him any deal. Rich threw 5.2 brilliant innings allowing one earned run to score. The unearned run was in a screwy inning, but anyways. Rich struck out six and only walked a couple of batters. He was removed because he threw a Cubsean 120 pitches. Command really was not the culprit with his pitch count, in fact he threw 80 strikes in the game! Since the beginning of August here's our boy's line.
55.1 IP, 2.59 ERA , 42 H, 51 K, 16 BB
That's damn near in line with his performance in Triple A the last two seasons. The Cubs have won three of their last 17 games. All three were started by Rich Hill. God, the rest suck. The Cubs offense started quickly with Jacque Jones and Derrek Lee hitting three run home runs off of John Smoltz who was later removed in with a groin injury. Derrek Lee added another home run in the sixth. He's really looked good since being activated. Fast Freddie Bynum drew three walks and got a hit, meaning Ryan Theriot lost a week of playing time. That's good because well it means more losses. Hank White also managed to collect two hits as well.
Ryan Dempster entered the game in the seventh and had his first scoreless outing in a few weeks. Nice to see him look good, but right now he's like the 5th best pitcher in our pen. With the recent emergence of a dominant David Aardsma perhaps trading Bob Howry is a plausible option to gain offense (I am looking at the Braves' Marcus Giles).
1. 90 Kansas City Royals
2. 87 Chicago Cubs
3. 87 Tampa Bay Devil Rays
4. 86 Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates were the only team in the race that played tonight, they won as well. The Cubs are now3 games behind Kansas City and are a half game up on the Devil Rays. The Cubs have a critical series coming up with the Dodgers. Los Angeles has a 1.5 game lead in the National League West and a 3.5 lead on the Wild Card spot. A classic sweep of the Cubs would mean that the Dodgers would essentially lock up a spot in the playoffs as long as they don't collapse the final 15 games of the season. The Cubs have not won a game not started by Rich Hill or Carlos Zambrano since the Ryan O'Malley game. Neither of those guys should be pitching in this series so they have a huge advantage. It's a bummer that we miss Greg Maddux this series, but here are the matchups:
Sep 12: Derek Lowe (14-8 3.64) vs Sean Marshall (5-9 5.27) - CSN
Sep 13: Brad Penny (15-8 4.21) vs Angel Guzman (0-5 7.53) - WGN
Sep 14: Hong-Chih Kuo (1-4 4.46) vs Wade Miller (0-1 12.00) - WGN
The Cubs have not won a game that Sean Marshall has started since July 5th and the Cubs are 1-11 in games that Angel Guzman pitches in. That one victory was the 18 inning game against the Astros where Gooz threw three solid innings. I guess I should not be expecting much this series. Oh well we should continue to gain ground in the draft pick race.
55.1 IP, 2.59 ERA , 42 H, 51 K, 16 BB
That's damn near in line with his performance in Triple A the last two seasons. The Cubs have won three of their last 17 games. All three were started by Rich Hill. God, the rest suck. The Cubs offense started quickly with Jacque Jones and Derrek Lee hitting three run home runs off of John Smoltz who was later removed in with a groin injury. Derrek Lee added another home run in the sixth. He's really looked good since being activated. Fast Freddie Bynum drew three walks and got a hit, meaning Ryan Theriot lost a week of playing time. That's good because well it means more losses. Hank White also managed to collect two hits as well.
Ryan Dempster entered the game in the seventh and had his first scoreless outing in a few weeks. Nice to see him look good, but right now he's like the 5th best pitcher in our pen. With the recent emergence of a dominant David Aardsma perhaps trading Bob Howry is a plausible option to gain offense (I am looking at the Braves' Marcus Giles).
1. 90 Kansas City Royals
2. 87 Chicago Cubs
3. 87 Tampa Bay Devil Rays
4. 86 Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates were the only team in the race that played tonight, they won as well. The Cubs are now3 games behind Kansas City and are a half game up on the Devil Rays. The Cubs have a critical series coming up with the Dodgers. Los Angeles has a 1.5 game lead in the National League West and a 3.5 lead on the Wild Card spot. A classic sweep of the Cubs would mean that the Dodgers would essentially lock up a spot in the playoffs as long as they don't collapse the final 15 games of the season. The Cubs have not won a game not started by Rich Hill or Carlos Zambrano since the Ryan O'Malley game. Neither of those guys should be pitching in this series so they have a huge advantage. It's a bummer that we miss Greg Maddux this series, but here are the matchups:
Sep 12: Derek Lowe (14-8 3.64) vs Sean Marshall (5-9 5.27) - CSN
Sep 13: Brad Penny (15-8 4.21) vs Angel Guzman (0-5 7.53) - WGN
Sep 14: Hong-Chih Kuo (1-4 4.46) vs Wade Miller (0-1 12.00) - WGN
The Cubs have not won a game that Sean Marshall has started since July 5th and the Cubs are 1-11 in games that Angel Guzman pitches in. That one victory was the 18 inning game against the Astros where Gooz threw three solid innings. I guess I should not be expecting much this series. Oh well we should continue to gain ground in the draft pick race.
No comments:
Post a Comment