Nice win this afternoon -- now let's keep it going and get the Cubs' first doubleheader sweep since the division-clinching sweep of the Pirates on September 27, 2003.
This thread will serve as the first-pitch thread as well as the pregame thread for game two; the schedule for the overflow threads is below. I'll post a more complete recap of both doubleheader games tomorrow morning.
Rich Harden, who was originally supposed to start last night and is instead starting this game, thus won't be able to start on short rest Sunday in Florida; instead, Lou will have choices:
The Cubs may wait to see who they need in the Atlanta series before picking a starter for Sunday.
"I can't bring Harden back on short rest, but I can bring Marquis back possibly," Piniella said Wednesday. "By him pitching the day game, it gives him a little longer time. If not, we'll either pitch [Jeff] Samardzija or pitch [Sean] Marshall."
| Today's Starting Pitchers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Again, a reminder that these numbers are Harden's with the Cubs only; his full-season numbers are in the pitcher box above.
The Braves must like Jorge Campillo a lot; they originally signed him in 1996, but released him a year later. He bounced around the Mariners' chain for a long time and pitched in eight games for them from 2005-2007 with little success. This year, forced into Atlanta's rotation by injuries, he's done quite well. He has never faced the Cubs.
Again, since I wrote about Harden in the thread for last night's rained-out game, here's a repeat of that for this one:Rich Harden faced the Braves in interleague play on May 17 in Atlanta and got a win. He allowed four hits in seven innings, all singles, walked one and struck out eight. One of those hits was by Mark Teixeira, who's no longer on the team. Casey Kotchman, who was acquired for Teixeira, is 3-for-12 (all singles) vs. Harden (from Kotchman's days with the Angels while Harden was in the AL).Tonight's game can be found on CSN Plus (CLTV in Chicago; check your cable system if you're not in the city), and on SportSouth, and BOTH feeds are on EI. Also see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Once again, a reminder that you can find the overflow comment threads, including the first pitch thread, on the right sidebar of both the front page and any interior page in the box headed "RECENT STORIES IN GAME THREADS". As noted above, this thread will serve as both the pregame and first pitch thread, since it's being posted near 5 pm CT, and the overflow comment threads will post at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:30 pm CT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.