The math is easy.
The Cubs have thirty-four games remaining, including today's.
That ought to give Greg Maddux seven more starts, including today. He needs to win five of them to have fifteen wins for the eighteenth consecutive season.
| Today's Starting Pitchers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maddux had one of his best starts of the year July 10 in Miami against the Marlins, throwing eight shutout innings.
Willis, in the meantime, had one of his season's worst two days earlier, and in his career has a 5.61 ERA against the team that drafted him.
Usually, stats like those are the kiss of death for the Cubs. But today, like every day in baseball, is a new day.
Also, word is, as was posted elsewhere here, that Matt Lawton may be on his way to the Yankees for a PTBNL. His roster replacement may be Scott McClain; if so, I'd expect McClain to start at 3B today. He's no savior or even prospect -- he's a 32-year-old retread. But man, he had a great spring training in 2004.
Finally, game time has been shifted to 12:20 CT from the originally scheduled 3:05, for Fox. Other Fox games today are Royals/Yankees, Cardinals/Nationals, Twins/Rangers, Mets/Giants and Phillies/Diamondbacks... so your guess is as good as mine whether you'll get the Cub game if you are anywhere other than Chicago or Miami.
Discuss amongst yourselves.