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Games till the blessed, merciful end of the season: 2
OMG! In line with obscure Cubs mythology, dating back to medieval times, the last Saturday home game of the season starts in pitch-black conditions at Wrigley, with first pitch at 3am! It's tradition, y'know... The good news is, because of the darkness, the game is still tied 0-0 in the 23rd inning. Augie is in his ninth frame of work and has a no-hitter going, so that's good. Hah! Bet you thought we'd forgotten about this one too! Nope, just scheduled it for 10am, to cause a little nervousness and friction among the "true fans." :-)
More on this one after the jump. Just to prove this wasn't a last-minute thing.
Daniel Cabrera starts for the Diamondbacks. I am not sure how I feel about this one, but if I was standing in the opposing batter's box, "concerned" would likely be my word of choice. After a truly horrendous debut for Arizona, allowing five earned runs without retiring a batter, he has been very solid since, throwing six shutout innings on five hits and two walks. The latter figure is the one to watch today, since in eight starts for the Nationals, in less than forty innings of work, Cabrera issued 32 free passes. That's been his ursa noir, shall we say, since coming to the big leagues. No-one doubts his stuff - and at 6'7" and 230 lbs, Mark Grace will be sorry to miss this one. But if he can't control where it goes....
Randy Wells (whom I keep wanting to call "Kip") was almost a Blue Jay. They took him from the Cubs in the Rule 5 draft in December 2007, but couldn't hold on to him and returned him to the Cubs the following April. Bet they wish they'd held on to him, as he has performed very well this year, with an ERA+ of 138. He's not a massive strikeout pitcher, with a season-high of seven K's in 26 starts, but won't walk many people either. His earlier rep was a problem with the long-ball, but that doesn't seem to have been a problem this year, with a HR rate of 0.80/nine IP. No-one on the D-backs has seen him before: we've seen cases where that has posed a problem for us. Be looking for the guys at the top of the order to have some extensive ABs, let their team-mates see some pitches.
Line-up
- Stephen Drew ss .261
- Augie Ojeda 2b .249
- Mark Reynolds 3b .261
- Miguel Montero c .297
- Chris Young cf .214
- Gerardo Parra rf .288
- Eric Byrnes lf .226
- Brandon Allen 1b .208
- Daniel Cabrera p .000
Am at work, so not likely to be about much for this one. Hopefully, the offense can show up and we'll get to 70 wins today.