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Our ace against the Brewers' ace, and I'll go with Haren FTW. While both men have been very good and probably over-achieving (nice though a sub-two ERA for Haren would be the rest of the season), simply based on career ERA+ (120 for Haren, vs. 110 for Looper), we have the edge. On the other hand, we should counter that with a healthy dose of offensive superiority for the Brewers (OPS+ 99 to 76), though neither side has set the plate on fire, each scoring just six runs over the first two games of the series.
A win this evening would guarantee us at least a split of the set in Milwaukee, which would be our best record here since 2003. But getting that would take either Haren to be just as fabulous as he has been so far, or the offense to do a good deal better with the lumber. If you take off the Clark ball that should have been called foul, and Upton's pair of RBI on a walk and a 50-foot squibber. there has once again been precious little for the hitters to write home about, even against the likes of Parra and Suppan, basically league-average pitchers who instead almost managed to shut down the D-backs completely [two runs in 12.1 innings of work]. Here's to better tonight, but it doesn't look like it'll be easy...
Lineup
- Lopez 2B
- Ojeda SS
- Tracy 1B
- Reynolds 3B
- Upton RF
- Jackson LF
- Byrnes CF
- Snyder C
- Haren P
The severely-scuffling Chris Young does indeed get the day off, with Eric Byrnes moving over to center for the start. Also nice to see Augie Ojeda back in the lineup, his groin apparentlu intact once more. I also note Upton hitting in the five-spot again - that's the highest he has been all season. With an eight-game hitting streak and a .370/.452/.667 line in that time, it's probably for the best.