Open Thread: Cubs vs. Braves, Sunday 5/28, 1:20 CT

Well, here's a mismatch.

Today's Starting Pitchers

J. Ryu Cubs vs. J. Smoltz Braves 0-0 W-L 4-2 9.00 ERA 3.12 2 SO 57 2 BB 16 0 HR 6 vs. Atl -- vs. Cubs

Smoltz made his major league debut on July 23, 1988. Ryu was five years old. Speaking of that, Ryu will turn 23 on Tuesday. Otherwise, we are speaking of a man who has thrown one major league inning, facing someone who's thrown almost 3,000 of them, and has beaten the Cubs like a drum his entire career (15-4, 2.91), including games like this and this and this and... need I go on?

The last time a Cub team had as many as three pitchers making their first major league start (as Ryu will become the third for 2006 today) was in 2000, with five -- Scott Downs, Phil Norton, Daniel Garibay, Ruben Quevedo, Joey Nation.

Wow. That's a rogue's gallery.

Some of you wondered about the green paint job that appeared in the bleachers this homestand. David sent me this photo:

(as always, click on thumbnail to view full-size in new browser window. If you are using IE, you may have to click the lower-right corner of the image in the new window to expand it to its full size; in Firefox click anywhere on the image.) Photo by David Sameshima

Look at the benches in the LF corner, with the stuff on them. That's our location -- apparently, I had gone off to the men's room when this photo was taken.

Oh, and the kid in the blue shirt and maroon shorts, glove in hand, waiting for baseballs? That's Mark. He did get two of them yesterday, one of them from the guy wearing #98 that you can see in the photo. Who's that? you might ask. That's Mike Higgason, the guy the club hired to be their new left-handed batting-practice pitcher.

Discuss amongst yourselves.