Road Trip Recap and Series Preview: Milwaukee Brewers (2-3) at Chicago Cubs (2-4)

(cross posted at ACB)

Well, that sucked. What did we learn from the opening road trip?

1. Alfonso Soriano looks even worse on defense than he did last season, despite the fact that he was playing hurt all of last year
2. He looks just as lost with the plate
3. Soto has forgotten how to swing his bat
4. Aramis Ramirez looks lost at the plate
5. The offense in general is having trouble scoring runs
6. The bullpen is going to kill Ron Santo
7. John Grabow should not face any RHH that can outhit Neifi Perez

Now, the good news

1. Carlos Marmol's stuff is still incredibly flithy
2. The starting pitching was pretty great. It's hard to pick which one was the best but I'd probably go with Dempster's outing vs Atlanta (6 IP 1R 3H 2BB 9K). Silva and Gorz were surprisingly effective too
3. After looking like crap in the first two games, Fontenot found his glove and showcased some great defense in the Reds series (and got a few hits too). Fukudome made some great plays in RF. All in all, players whose names do not rhyme with Garbanzo Italiano played some good defense.
4. It's only been a week. We have good reason to believe Ramirez will bounce back, and to a lesser extent Soto. Even Soriano should get hot at some point. The Cubs are mixing Colvin in, which is the right thing to do (though he should be replacing Soriano defensively earlier in games), but you have to give these guys at least a month or two before you make any major changes.

Anyway, enough blathering. Onto the first Wrigley series of the year!

The Cubs take on the Brewers in what should be a beautiful week (great weather, 6 straight day games) to watch a baseball game, drink some Old Style, and gaze at the Glorious Scoreboard™ and the regenerating ivy vines...except the boo-birds should be out. Who will get booed the most? Soriano is the best bet but Z should be up there too. But the best way to stop the boos is to win, and the Cubs are set up to do so in this series with their rivals and their Little Brother Complex fanbase from the north.

Here's a glance at the Brewers' lineup and pitching staff

Batters (CHONE wOBA, CHONE UZR projection)

* 2b Rickie Weeks, RHB (.364, -5.2)
* CF Carlos Gomez, RHB (.323, 11.3)
* LF Lloyd Braun, RHB (.404, -4.9)
* 1b Prince Fielder, LHB (.412,-3)
* RF Jim Edmonds, LHB (.334,-0.2)
* 3b Casey McGehee, RHB (.324,-3.4)
* C Gregg Zaun, SHB (.315,-1.2)
* SS Overrated Escobar, (.322,0.9)

My lineup-a-tron pegs this lineup at 3.719 runs/game

Pitchers (CHONE FIP)

* Yovani Gallardo, RHP (3.62)
* Randy Wolf, LHP (4.22)
* Doug Davis, LHP (4.57)
* Dave Bush, RHP (4.79)
* Jeff Suppan, LOL (5.24)
* Trevor Hoffman, RHP (3.84)
* LaTroy Hawkins, RHP (3.97)
* Todd Coffey, RHP (4.10)

That non-Braun/Fielder offense is much more pedestrian than I thought. McGehee played way over his head last season, though I think CHONE might have him pegged a little low. Gomez is graded out to be their only plus defender, but scouts have raved about Escobar's defense for a long time - his main problem is that he swings at everything. Their defensive numbers could see a slight bump up with those two in place of Cameron (who is about as good as Gomez defensively) and J.J. Hardy (who was also pretty good defensively), but don't expect a big defense-related turnaround with this team.

Injuries

Suppan not only sucks, but he's making his first start coming back from a neck injury. Future DH trade bait Mat Gamel has a shoulder tear and is expected to miss the first month or two of the season. For the Cubs, Lilly has had another setback and has had his next start pushed back to Wednesday. He'll throw a bullpen session on Monday. Theriot has been bothered by a sore calf but was well enough to play (and take some pitches) today. I wouldn't be surprised to see Fontenot get a start sometime in the next week.

Players to watch

I actually like several players on the Brewers, but it's kind of cancelled out by the douchiness of Braun and the crapulence of their pitching staff in general. Prince Fielder is one of my favorite players in all of baseball, and Rickie Weeks can still be an incredible player if he manages to make it through the season for once. He's an exciting player and can get on base. For the Cubs, I'm not going to pick someone specific. The offense in general needs to pick it up, and there's no better recipe than the starters the Cubs are facing this week (not to mention the shambolic Astros in the following series).

Pitching Matchups

Monday: Doug Davis, LHP (6.41,4.52,4.57) vs Ryan Dempster, RHP (1.41,1.86,3.89), 1:20 PM CT

I'm glad Demp gets the start in the home opener, since he is the nominal ace of the staff (if you define Ace to be best starting pitcher). We can't say enough about what a great job Hendry did in bringing him back after 2008. Everything was working for him in his last start. Adding further hope for a good start at home, Davis is a LHP, which the Cubs righty-heavy lineup should pound. Of course, I remember Davis giving the Cubs fits in many other starts. He's pretty wild (4+ BB/9 projected, and 4.07 for his career), but given the Cubs swing-happy clubs maybe it's not so surprising that he does well against them. In his first start, he was wild early and settled down as the game went on.

Wednesday: David Bush, RHP (4.14,2.81,4.79) vs Randy Wells, RHP (3.57,4.26,4.27), 1:20 PM CT

Bush has great control (2.15 BB/9 in his career) but his main trouble has always been the home run ball (1.28 HR/9 on his career, 1.41 and 1.50 in his last 2 seasons). He had a pedestrian outing vs StL in his first start, fanning 6 while walking two and giving up 3 runs (one homer) in 5 2/3 innings. Wells, meanwhile, had a great start against the Braves. He only struck out one batter, but he didn't allow any runs and managed to induce double play balls to get him out of jams. He got 13 grounders to only 3 FB and 5 LD. If he can keep the GB rate (and popup rate) going like he did last year, he'll keep putting up useful numbers.

Thursday: Carlos Zambrano, RHP (6.99,3.62,4.08) vs Jeff Suppan, RHP (5.23) 1:20 PM CT

This should be a fun one. There is a chance Gallardo could get this start (he's listed as the probable on mlb.com), but everything else I've seen points towards Suppan making this start. Luckily for the Brewers, this is the last year of his awful, awful deal. Hats off to Suppan, who turned 2 good weeks at the end of 2006 into $42 million dollars. Well played, sir, well played.

Fun fact: Z has a career 3.64 ERA at home and 3.35 ERA on the road

Prediction

Cubs win 2 out of 3, and a good chance for a sweep. I also think that Sean Marshall and Jeff Gray will replace Grabow and Caridad as the top 2 relievers behind Marmol by the end of the week.

Cubs start season 0-2

I'm not worried, though I did find the games a bit disappointing. I've been waiting for months for real baseball, only to be reminded of the following facts

1. Soriano still waves futiley at sliders down and away
2. I still hate the John Grabow signing
3. Ryan Theriot is frustrating to watch on defense, no matter what the metrics tell me
4. The Cubs continue to show terrible fundamentals in the field and on the basepaths
5. Jeff Samardzija should be catching footballs
6. Ron Santo is a year older but sounds about 10 years older. I'm worried about his health.

But, on the bright side
1. I still love watching baseball, and watched/listened to all of the home opener despite how much it brought me down from my pre-game optimism and anticipation.
2. Jason Heyward. Wow.
3. Sean Marshall has looked dominating as a reliever. Someone mentioned on ACB that he might be this year's DeRosa.

The Braves are a really good ballclub - possibly the best or second-best team in the NL (up there with the Phillies). We shouldn't be surprised that a fringy team like the Cubs would lose a road series to (or get swept by) a top team like this.

Series mini-preview: Giants (12-11) v Cubs (13-11)

The Cubs take on the Giants for a short series at Wrigley field this week. The Cubs offense is finally starting to head up, and most importantly become healthy. Of course, just as Ramirez returns, Z goes on the DL. Scales is being called up for a few days until Zambrano's replacement comes to take his rotation spot - he should spell Fontenot/Theriot/Miles, who have been playing every day (though I hope we keep seeing Fontenot in the lineup, as he is good at hitting baseballs).

Pitching Probables:
Monday: Sanchez (L) (4.78, 3.9) v Dempster (R) (4.73, 3.8)

If you just look at the ERAs, this looks like a mismatch. Sanchez has a nice ERA thus far but his FIP says otherwise, while Dempster's numbers are off in the opposite direction. Not much to say here - both of these guys can have problems with walks - in fact they seem like very similar pitchers. The Cubs have a better (and hotter) offense, so I think they squeak out a win here.

Tuesday: Lincecum (R) (1.89, 3.0), v Marshall (L) (3.9, 4.6)

Lincecum is good at pitching. Marshall took a good first step at proving me wrong in his great last start - he really had his curveball working for him. Factor in the offenses and this game is closer than at first glance, but I think SF wins this one.

Prediction: Split series

Series Preview: Cubs (9-8) vs Arizona (7-11), 4/27-4/29

The Cubs bats finally woke up vs St. Louis yesterday, despite the fact that their two best remaining hitters (Lee and Soriano) both had injury scares yesterday. Lee left the game in the first with neck spasms and is day-to-day, while Soriano was hit in the head by a Wellemeyer pitch and remained in the game. Still, scary moments for a team with such a a short bench. Arizona is coming off a series loss to the Giants and has injury problems of its own. They just found out that Brandon Webb is going to miss at another 6 weeks or so with shoulder issues, which is a huge blow to their chances to contend in the west. Stephen Drew is also injured, and will miss this series. This is an interesting matchup for the Cubs, as the Diamondbacks have a rep for being a hack-tastic team, most notably Mark Reynolds and Chris Young. Justin Upton had a poor start to the season, but seems to be emerging from his slump (or at least KLaw certainly seems to think so). I hope so too, since I bought low on him in both of my fantasy leagues. The Cubs have a strikeout staff, so they should see an uptick in their numbers this series. It's too bad Harden isn't pitching against them, that would be fun to watch. Even without Webb, Arizona's strength is its starting pitching, and we're not seeing any slouches here in this series. Here are the matchups:

Probable Pitchers
Monday: Lilly v Haren (8:40 pm)

Haren would be the ace of pretty much any other team, and with Webb out he's the leader of this staff. He's one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball - he had a quietly huge season last year (3.01 FIP and 208 K's in 216 IP), and hasn't slowed down this season. Lilly's been his usual up-and-down self this season, pitching one dud start along with two sparkling outings. This should be another frustrating, low-scoring game with little offense from the Cubs like we've been seeing this week; I wouldn't be surprised to see another 7-1 type game where it's close until the 7th or 8th inning, where the Cubs bullpen gets lit up, and the offense looks clueless again. Dan Haren is not the prescription for a slumping team to break out, and these things happen when half your lineup is injured and the other half is slumping.

Tuesday: Zambrano v Petit (8:40 pm)

Z hasn't looked great in his last few starts, but at least he's managed to go relatively deep in them. He looked okay in his last start against the Reds (7 K's), but was left in one inning too long, not to mention the poor defense behind him in that game (he made one mistake himself). Petit is a decent guy to have around as a swingman. I remember him pitching pretty well against the Cubs in a spot start last year. He's pitched okay in his starts so far this year, despite a 6.00 ERA teams haven't really teed off on him and he hasn't been walking people willy-nilly. The Cubs should get through against him, I think.

Wednesday: Dempster v Davis (2:40 pm)

Just like my last preview of Demp, he just needs to avoid the One Big Inning problem I think this is a good matchup for him though. Davis has always pitched well against the Cubs, but also tends to walk a lot of guys (which the Cubs are good at). His control seems fine so far this season - he's only had one start where he's walked more than one batter. This one is probably a toss-up

Series Prediction
Both of these teams are slumping a little bit, but I think the Diamondbacks have a slight edge in this series, and win 2-1

Two-game recap and series Preview: Cubs v Cardinals (4/24 - 4/26)

It was just my luck that the two games that I went to were some pretty lousy results for the Cubs. I'm not too upset about the offense in those games though - Cueto and Harang brought their A games, and sometimes you have to tip your cap to the other pitcher. Lilly and Z both pitched great games, and if it weren't for some shoddy defense by Hoffpauir the second game could have gone in another direction.

I had field level seats for a decent price for Z's start (yay for Bronze ticket pricing dates!) and it was pretty cool. I think I still like the upper deck boxes better though. I was hoping to be able to see more movement on Z's pitches being closer but I could not. I have much more respect for major league hitters now. I got a few pictures but my camera batteries ran out in the second inning (I forgot to replace them before I left, d'oh). I'll put up a few once I get around to dumping them off the camera. It's too bad we didn't get a lead, because I really wanted to see Marmol pitch. Samardzija's inning was a trainwreck, and I bitched good-naturedly with several fans around me about the questionable bullpen decisions over the past day or two. Samardzija was all over the place, and when he was in the strike zone he was being hit. Leaving him in the minors until he found some control was the Cubs plan all along - I just don't understand their bullpen management decisions.

For the upcoming series, it's going to be pretty similar to the last one, except we're seeing Boggs instead of Walters in Carpenter's spot. The Cards are still hot, and MB is still injured. I feel good about the matchups though

Pitching Probables
Friday: Dempster v Wainwright (7:05 pm)

Dempster's been remarkably consistent over his first three starts. He's gone six innings, struck out ~5 batters, walked ~3 players, and has given up ~4 runs. Dempster's main problem is his propensity for hte big inning; it seems like in most of his starts he's had one inning with 6-8 batters and kept people off the basepaths in the rest. My report for Wainwright is about the same as last time. He's a good pitcher, but he's had some control problems thus far in the season, and had a bad spring IIRC. Pitching-wise this seems like a pretty even matchup, so you have to think that the advantage goes to the Cards in this game, as hot as their offense has been and as cold as the Cubs has been

Saturday: Marshall v Boggs (3:10 pm, on FOX)

Marshall had a decent though unspectacular outing against the Cardinals the last time out. He went 5 innings and gave up 3 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks. I've never been a big Marshall supporter, even though he's a much better pitcher than he was in 2006, I keep expecting him to fail for some reason, even though I know he shouldn't. We don't have much to go on with Boggs, except that he was hit pretty hard last year as a mid-season callup, though a lot of that is skewed by a 10 run outing that seems like a take-one-for-the-team type situtation. He didn't go past 6 innings in any of his starts last year. He had decent numbers in the minors, but not the kind of K/BB rates that you expect from a really good prospect (only ~2:1). I think the Cubs squeak this one out.

Sunday: (EDIT:) Harden v Wellemeyer (1:15 pm)
Wellemeyer was hit pretty hard by the Mets in his last start (though no HRs yet this season), and seems to be having problems striking people out. Harden had a good outing last time against the Reds; though his velocity was down, he still managed 8 strikeouts. With the warm weather, we might see some balls flying out of the park, but I like this matchup for the Cubs.

Series Prediction:
2-1 Cardinals. Cards win Friday and one of the two weekend games (probably Saturday)

Series Preview: Cubs vs. Cardinals (4/16-4/19)

The first 'big' series of the year is coming up for the Cubs. So far it seems that the Cardinals are the only credible competition for the Cubs this year within the division, though the Cubs should finish well ahead of them. I was feeling much more bullish about the Cardinals until Carpenter was injured yesterday, which is really too bad for them. I caught an inning or two of the game before his injury and it reminded me of why I like watching Carpenter pitch. He should still be a factor for the rest of the season, but those oblique injuries can be pretty strange.

The Cubs are suddenly looking banged up too, though it's not too surprising considering the cold weather they've been playing in. The Cubs will be without Bradley until the weekend, due to his groin injury. I don't think we see him until next week, seeing how wet the weather this weekend is supposed to be (I wouldn't be surprised if the Sunday game is rained out). Ramirez has been day-to-day with a stiff back and Soto just returned from a minor shoulder/biceps problem as well. He went 0-4 today and I would not be surprised if it takes him a few games to get into a groove at the plate.

Who's hot
Cubs:
Fukudome
Soriano
Lee (has been hitting the ball hard)
Marmol

Cards:
Pujols
Ludwick
Lohse

Who's not
Cubs:
Soto
Gregg
Dempster

Cards:
Ankiel
Motte

The matchups
Thursday: Wainwright v Marshall (1:20 start)
Wainwright is a good pitcher, but I feel good about the team's chances against him at this point in the season. He struggled to find the strike zone and thus ran up some early pitch counts in his first two starts (8 BB in 10.1 IP). Given how patient the Cubs have been lately, we might expect to see more of the same in this start. This will be Marshall's first start this year, and I'm interested in seeing how he'll do. As always, the Cardinals have an offense that's better than it appears, and I think they rough up Marshall this time around. I expect this to be a high-scoring game.

Friday: Lohse v Zambrano (1:20 start)
This should be a good game. Zambrano always brings his A game against the Cardinals, and Lohse has pitched very well thus far this season (albeit against the poor-hitting Pirates and Astros). Lohse has shown better control so far this year, and I have the feeling that this one will be a real pitchers' duel.

Saturday: Wellemeyer v Dempster (2:40 start)
Wellemeyer is yet another Larussa/Duncan reclamation project that I keep expecting to blow up in their faces, and yet he keeps producing. I hated him when he was with the Cubs, but he's been better than decent since joining the Cardinals. Dempster was quite shaky in his last outing, so it will be interesting to see if he bounces back. I hope he made good on his promise to Reed Johnson to buy him some Culver's for hauling back Fielder's grand slam.

Sunday: Lilly v TBA (7:05 start)
It's another night game, and should be cool due to the rain that's moving through this weekend (which might cancel the game). This should help Ted - he pitched well in the cold conditions in the home opener on Monday. Lilly's one of those guys who gives you a better-than-quality start when he has his stuff/the conditions are good, but gets shelled if he's off. I'm thinking Lilly puts up another good performance and the Cubs crush whomever the Cards throw out there to replace Carpenter.

Random Predictions
Cubs win series 3-1 (win on Sunday and the other three games are close)
Pujols hits 3 HR in the series
Derrek Lee heats up, hits 2 HR

Project-a-tron: The rest of the starting rotation

The projections

Player	IP	K	K/BB	WHIP	ERA	WAR
Dempster	195	158	2.04	1.31	3.82	3.6
Lilly	210	183	2.54	1.29	3.88	3.7
Marshall	170	124	1.96	1.37	4.3	2.1
Heilman (as starter)	28	25	2.13	1.38	4.19	0.3

Before any comments, you gotta love the strikeout staff that the Cubs have assembled.

Dempster's numbers are obviously going to regress to the mean after last year's stellar performance. Even the most optimistic of Cubs fans have to admit that he won't put up those kinds of numbers again. The fact that he was able to pitch so many effective innings last year is a good sign of his conditioning, and the likely drop in numbers will be more indicative of his true talent than some sort of late-age Verducci Effect. Strangely enough, Dempster's ZiPS projection has him with an ERA of 4.08 but a BABIP of .254, without any other big variations in his other stats. Wierd.

Lilly had a much better season than his aggregate stats let on - he was just shelled in April (6.46 ERA at the end of the month), but he managed to shave about 2 and a half runs off his ERA over the rest of the season. Really Lilly's problem is that if he doesn't have it (or there's a strong wind blowing out), he gets hit hard, and if he does have his stuff, he's an incredibly effective pitcher. For a long time he has struck me as the kind of guy who has a good true talent level but with a very high variance in his performances when compared to other pitchers - If I have some time I might make a blog post about it someday.

I originally had Marshall pegged for 130 innings or so, but I think he can pitch for more. 170 innings might be stretching it, but since he'll be the team's defacto 4th starter he should see a lot of action. I'm still having a hard time getting over my perception of him from 2006 - which was that he was a guy who got hit very hard his second and third time through the order and would fade down the stretch as the league figured him out. But, I think that most of these problems stemmed from the fact that he was too young and pressed into service too soon. Marshall has grown as a pitcher and should do a fine job of delivering league average innings for a few years, though I don't see much potential in him to do much more than that.

Heilman seems like the most likely candidate at this point to soak up the extra Marshall/Harden innings. If Samardzija does end up going to Iowa he might end up filling this slot instead, which would not be so good - if Heilman excells as a bullpen guy this would make this more likely to happen as well.