Series Preview (and a Castro-inspired trip down memory lane) Marlins (14-17) at Cubs (14-18)

Since I've pretty much given up on this season already, I (mostly) enjoyed this series. We were talking about it in the comments a few days ago, but Friday's game was the most exciting Cubs game any of us could remember going back to 2008. Honestly I can't pull out a specific game memory out of any of the 2009 games, but I can list off four great ones from 2008 that were just as memorable:

Sep 20, 2008: Cubs 5 - 4 Cardinals . The greatest Cubs team any of us will see in our lifetimes capped off a fantastic season at home over their biggest rivals. Of course, they were also nice enough to do it in the one game I attended all year (dying laughing)

Sep 18, 2008: Cubs 7 - 6 Brewers, 12 innings. The Cubs were down by 4 runs and facing Brewers closer Salomon Torres. With 2 outs the Cubs rallied to score 4 runs, including a game-tying 3-run HR by Geovany Soto. The Cubs went on to win it in extras on a Derrek Lee walkoff single

July 28, 2008: Cubs 11 - 4 Brewers. The Cubs went into a big 4-game series at Miller park tied with the surging Brewers. The Brewers sent Sabathia to the mound in the first game, who had been mowing down the National league since being traded to the Crew. The Cubs eked out a win in this game, and went on to utterly embarrass the Brewers in their own park, outscoring them 31-11 in the 4 games.

And, of course Sep 14, 2008: Cubs 5 - 0 Astros.

After all that I'm too lazy to write much of a preview (dying laughing)

The Marlins have a pretty crummy offense (.318 wOBA), but then again so do many teams at this point in the season. It's strange that their two best hitters (Ramirez and Uggla) are their middle infielders. Go figure.

They're below average on the field as well, as their defense has cost them roughly half a win thus far. As per usual though, their pitching staff has put up a respectable 3.92 FIP, and it's not all smoke and mirrors as their xFIP is 4.14. I guess it's not that surprising given the pitchers' park they play half their games in.

Matchups

Monday Nate Robertson, LHP (5.55, 5.59, 4.56) vs Ted Lilly, LHP (5.44, 4.06, 4.06), 7:05 PM CT

Robertson is a guy that I wished the Cubs had gone after when they were shopping Milton Bradley. The Tigers pretty much dumped him on the Marlins, paying all of his salary minus the league minimum. For some reason I thought he was right-handed. I thought that the transition to the National League would have helped him (he moved from one pitchers' park to another one), but so far not so much. Lilly just had one of those games in his last outing. It's still spring training for him, and he's a flyball guy. He had a few blowout losses in April last year too. I'm not too worried. One nice thing about Lilly is that he tends to (or at least seems to, I'm being lazy today) give up runs in bunches, so overall he's more helpful to a team than a guy like Silva who you can pretty much count on for 6 innings and 3-4 runs every time. Lilly either gets hammered or shuts them down.

Tuesday Ricky Nolasco, LHP (4.37, 3.90, 3.63) vs Randy Wells, RHP (2.60, 3.44, 4.09) , 7:05 PM CT

Speaking of Cubs pitchers getting hammered, Wells was hit hard in his last start. Though seeing how it didn't make a dent in his FIP numbers some of it was bad luck - his BABIP skyrocketed to .383....but that's right in line with the ridiculous 25.5% LD rate he's posted so far. Nolasco turned in a great 2009 despite his 5+ ERA. He struck out more than a batter an inning, walked 2.14 per nine and had a reasonable HR rate of 1.12 HR/9. He had some bad babip luck (.336), and presumably some bad defense behind him too. Maybe the Cubs could trade Lee for him and move him to the bullpen?

Wednesday Chris Volstad, RHP (4.25, 4.42, 4.47) vs Tom Gorzelanny, LHP (2.71, 3.34, 3.93), 1:20 PM CT

I seem to remember Volstad shutting down the Cubs in their first look at him last year. But my memory is usually pretty faulty. He doesn't strike out very many, but gets a fair number of ground balls. Expect a WAG-fest. Gorzelanny is the 2009 Randy Wells of this season - he just can't get any run support. Huge props to the Cubs for landing him for two guys who are on the DL with torn labrums. Even bigger props to the Cubs and Rothschild in particular for jacking up that K rate - he's struck out more than a batter an inning ever since he joined the team. That was a real steal by Hendry.

I'm out of the prediction game, but I do like the fact that the Cubs face two lefties. Go Castro Go!

Series Preview: Marlins (13-8) v Cubs (10-10), 4/30- 5/3

As crappy as the team has played, it's good to remember that the Cubs are 10-10, and not, say 5-15 like the Washington Natinals. Speaking of the Natinals, the Marlins are certainly going to miss playing them.

Opponent	Record	Runs Scored	Runs Allowed	Runs Scored/Game	Runs Allowed/Game
vs WAS	6-0	45	25	7.5	4.1
vs everyone else	7-8	49	75	3.3	5

Just about any team will feast on the (lack of) pitching that the Nationals have, and the Marlins are no exception. Their best player, Hanley Ramirez, is also a little banged up after being hit on the wrist by a pitch earlier this week.

The Cubs, on the other hand, are coming off a stretch three straight series losses and a clownboatload of injuries. There were signs of life in the offense in Tuesday's game, and Milton Bradley seems to be seeing the ball a bit better. However, they stunk up the joint on Monday and Wednesday, and it looks like the team's second best hitter, Aramis Ramirez, might be headed to the DL. This can only mean more Aaron Miles, which is not a recipe for good. Furthermore, Soto and Lee have looked quite terrible at the plate. Maybe Florida's pitching can wake some of these guys up? Maybe they'll have to take a trip to KFC instead.

Note: I'm going to add each pitcher's current and roughly projected FIP to these

Probable Pitchers
Thursday: Volstad (4.64, 4.4) v Marshall(3.77, 4.6) (7:05 pm)
Volstad's a decent pitcher. He put up a great ERA last year in his rookie season and his peripherals backed it up, to some extent. He's struggled with his control in his last few starts but has been able to limit the damage. Marshall has been spectacularly mediocre, doing just what you expect from your 5th starter (lasting 5-6 innings, giving up 3 runs or so). I'm still not the biggest Marshall supporter, as you may have surmised, though I think he is our fifth best starting pitcher and is certainly better than Jason Marquis. I still haven't gotten over his scouting report from 2006 that said he's the type of guy that will be hit hard after his second or third time through the lineup (and second or third time around the league). He's shown some promise since then, but he needs to prove me wrong to make a believer out of me. He certainly did have a wicked curveball working in his last start, which I love to see.

Friday: Taylor(7.82, 5.43) v Harden(4.52, 3.1) (1:20 pm)
I don't know if we'll see a bigger pitching mismatch the entire season. Taylor just made the jump from AA into the Marlins rotation, and was hit hard by the Phillies in his only start. His minor league numbers show him to be a command guy, with K/9 hovering in the ~6 range but with very few walks. That kind of stuff typically doesn't translate into the majors unless you have truly special stuff, and it does not look like Taylor has it. Not much I can say about Harden here. He is good at throwing baseballs.

Saturday: Anibal Sanchez(4.1, 4.35) v Ted Lilly(5.34, 4.3) (1:20 pm)
Sanchez was hit pretty hard in his last start vs. the Mets. He definitely has problems with the base on balls, so I hope the Cubs can capitalize. As far as Lilly goes, we'll see which Ted shows up. It shouldn't be too warm at Wrigley on Saturday, so that will help him out some. He certainly has to show more command than he did in his last start. This one feels like a tossup to me.

Sunday: Ricky Nolasco(3.65,4.05) v Carlos Zambrano(4.13, 4.15) (1:20pm)
Nolasco has a terrible ERA thus far, but I was surprised to see that his peripherals look good. The Cubs hit lefthanders very well last year (despite Doug freaking Davis and Wandy freaking Rodriguez having their number), so it will be interesting to see how things go vs. Nolasco. Z had a great outing in his last start, though wierdly enough he only notched 3 strikeouts against the hack-tastic Diamondbacks. I saw him pitch in person and I can see why people have been cringing at his mechanics for quite some time. It seems to be working though (albeit not as well as he pitched pre 2007), and Z is still Z. You gotta love having that bat in the lineup too. That HR he hit was absolutely crushed. Seeing the replays still floors me, it didn't look like he even got a good swing on it. Zambrano is crazy strong.

Predictions:
Series is split, though I do think the Cubs have a slight advantage. The first two games are fairly easy picks, but I would not be surprised to see the Cubs win both weekend games and finally build some momentum.