Today is my son Mark's Bar Mitzvah. And in honor of that, the Fox-TV wizard has decided to send the Cubs/Phillies game to 90% of the country (the other game: Orioles/Rays) -- that's about the highest percentage I've seen for a Saturday Fox game, nearly national coverage. And even better, the announcers are Dick Stockton, Eric Karros and Ken Rosenthal -- yeah, I know, we're all not crazy about Stockton, but Eric Karros is one of the better up-and-coming announcers Fox has. The list below contains the TV markets that are NOT carrying the Cubs game:
Baltimore MD, Bangor ME, Boston MA, Burlington VT, Fort Myers FL, Gainesville FL, Hartford CT, Orlando FL, Portland ME, Presque Isle ME, Providence RI, Salisbury MD, Springfield MA, Tallahassee FL, Tampa FL Yes, that's it. Unless you are in Baltimore, Tampa, northern or central Florida, or much of New England, you'll see the Cubs and Phillies today.
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Brett Myers was so bad earlier this year that the Phillies sent him to Triple-A. Since his return he's been lights-out: 4-1, 1.66. Lifetime vs. the Cubs he's 6-2, 2.67; Derrek Lee (who we would ALL like to see start hitting with authority again) is 12-for-25 with 3 HR against Myers. He beat the Cubs on April 11 in Philadelphia, though he gave up three solo HR, to D-Lee, A-Ram and Alfonso Soriano, one of three HR Myers has given up to A-Sor.
The bad early-season Ted Lilly lost to the Phillies in Philadelphia on April 12, allowing homers to Pedro Feliz and Ryan Howard. But he is 4-1, 3.25 since the All-Star break and 8-2, 3.48 in 15 starts since June 10. His only real problem this year has been the long ball -- he's allowed 29, leading the NL. If he can stay away from that, it should be a fine afternoon.
Today's game is on Fox, as noted above. Also see the MLB.com Mediacenter for Saturday's night games.
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". Today's first pitch thread posts at 2:45 pm CT, and the overflow comment threads will post at 3:45, 4:45 and 5:30 pm CT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.