Milton Bradley will be back tonight -- and hopefully for more than one game before he goes out again. Aramis Ramirez won't start but hopefully will be available to PH (see the full lineup below), and Carlos Marmol will be available for setup duty.
I promised this at 6 pm CDT; it's up a little early because the starting lineup is out, and today's earlier thread was getting a little slow.
Anyway, we won't see Lou forced to use Reed Johnson as his cleanup hitter again; in fact, Reed gets today off with a righthander going. With Micah Hoffpauir at first base and Koyie Hill catching, that gives Lou three lefthanded hitters in tonight's lineup (Fukudome, Hoffpauir and Fontenot) and four switch-hitters (Bradley, Hill, Miles and Z).
Maybe the Cubs can actually have a breakout hitting night. Z, incidentally, is making his first regular-season start against the D'backs since that disastrous Opening Day start on April 4, 2005, where he gave up seven hits and four walks and had to be pulled with a 9-3 lead, one out short of a victory. Since then, Z's only appearance vs. Arizona was in the 2007 NLDS -- nuff said about that, I suspect. He and Randy Johnson were supposed to match up last Mother's Day at Wrigley Field, but with a rain delay and bad field conditions, both Z and Johnson were pulled from their starts. Z will miss the two-game San Francisco series next week; he'll start tonight, then Sunday vs. the Marlins.
Ex-Cub watch: the Padres recalled Chad Gaudin from Triple-A and he will start their game tonight against the Rockies. He's determined to stay in their rotation; if he does, he's likely to start the afternoon game on Thursday, May 14 at Wrigley Field.
From twittermeyer, tonight's starting lineup:
Soriano, LF Theriot, SS Fukudome, CF Hoffpauir, 1B Bradley, RF Fontenot, 3B Hill, C Miles, 2B Zambrano, P
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Today's game is on WGN. Weird broadcast stat of the year so far: the Cubs are doing far better in WGN games (4-2) than in CSN games (3-6). That's a reversal of the last three years. Yes, I know it doesn't matter, but it is a weird coincidence. For more see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Discuss amongst yourselves.