SFG --- (G1: Hennessey vs MON Biddle) (G2: Franklin vs MON TBA) SDP 1.0 (Wells vs ATL Byrd) CHC 1.5 (Clement vs MIL Sheets)
Giants have now won six in a row. Combined with Florida and Philadelphia (and the whole NL East!) losing, it’s down to three teams close for the day. They can put some nice sized room on everyone else if Montreal lays down and dies today.
Monteal’s only announced one starter and Biddle may start either half of the DH. I would expect wackyness.
I got confused yesterday – yesterday was Alou’s day off. Macias started instead and I still don’t think it was a good move. If there’s a starting pitcher you can afford to skip on the outfield defense for a night, it’s Carlos, so you might as well have tried Walker in LF.
I went out to dinner and came back in time to have missed all the scoring, but plenty of time to watch the Cubs make a lot of outs.
I’d like to stump again for the Cubs to pick up Ricky Henderson. I know he can only walk and steal at this point, but Macias can’t do either of those things and Goodwin can’t get on to steal. Maybe not right now – if Hollandsworth can’t come back, that’ll leave a spot on the 40 man in September – but before the end of the season, we might as well take a chance. It’s not going to cost money and I don’t think he’d be a disruption. Once again (and for the fourth time in five years!), this is going to go down to the final weekend for the Cubs, and they need every little advantage they can get.
Plus, if Corey doesn’t learn how to steal by hanging around Vince Coleman and Ricky Henderson, we know he’s never going to learn that way.
The last three games of the Cubs season are against Atlanta, which is going to make it quite interesting. They’ll surely have locked up the division by then, but I doubt they’d have clinched their seed. They’ll be determing if they play the wild card and who the wild card in at the same time.
Matt’s support neutral record is 9-7, as opposed to his 8-10 real life one. That doesn’t crack the top 10 unluckiest (though not far away) and isn’t as much a difference as announcers have suggested. The gulf is due to his flakiness:
Clement Starts 4 or more runs: 8 2-3 runs: 6 0-1 runs: 10
Two of the those 4 run starts featured unearned starts, and I think the brilliance of the really good starts with little help dulls people’s memories to the bad ones. Clement’s had a good season, but it’s probably being overstated.
Cubs.com’s preview gives the run support numbers:
For Today's On Starter Average Difference CHC 3.66 4.63 -0.97 MIL 3.18 3.97 -0.79
If Matt’s going to do good today, he’s got to cut down his walks – he’s nearly averaging one an inning his last two times out – and hope that Sheets doesn’t pitch as well as he has often against the Cubs.