Peavy? What Peavy? There's a game tonight! (But if you really want more Peavy, here's Barry Rozner's take. It seems likely that Peavy will make his scheduled start against the Cubs tomorrow night.
Now, back to the current series. The Cardinals have played 40 games and the Cubs 38 -- both fewer than one-quarter of their season. Yet, tonight's will be the ninth game between the two teams -- almost a quarter of the schedule.
That makes for rematches; these two pitchers hooked up on April 16 at Wrigley Field. Marshall pitched fairly well and left the game when it was tied -- the bullpen blew it. Both pitchers have faced tonight's opponent on another occasion this year, so they ought to be well familiar with the lineups.
I liked the word Lou Piniella used to describe what some Cardinals fans did as Lou walked back to the team hotel on Tuesday night:
Piniella said he was "razzled" by some Cardinals fans who recognized him, but fortunately there was no confrontation like the one he had with a loudmouth fan at Wrigley Field last weekend.
"Razzled". Lou's getting kind of Casey Stengel-ish with the English language.
Notes: Rick Ankiel won't be activated from the DL today.| Today's Starting Pitchers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I had nearly forgotten that Adam Wainwright used to be a reliever, but his record vs. the Cubs -- 17 appearances, only 8 starts -- reminds us that he spent a full year in the Cardinals' bullpen. His record vs. the Cubs is 2-3 with a 5.47 ERA, which has actually come down with the two decent starts he's had against them this year. Tonight might be a good time to rest Derrek Lee, who has hit only .211 (4-for-19) vs. Wainwright, who has walked 23 batters in 49 innings. It would be a really, really good idea to just wait him out -- unlike what the Cubs have done the last two nights.
Sean Marshall holds his own against virtually the entire Cardinal lineup, even Albert Pujols, who is 4-for-18 (all singles) against him. Only Brian Barden, who is 4-for-4, has hit him well. The Cardinals generally struggle vs. lefties and the Cubs have pitched well against St. Louis in this series. Keep up the good work, Sean; if he pitches well, Lou will have a tough decision to make regarding who to keep in the rotation (Marshall or Randy Wells) when Carlos Zambrano returns tomorrow.
There is national coverage again tonight, this time on the MLB Network, for those of you not in the St. Louis or Chicago areas, where it is on the local cable outlets. Usually, MLBN picks up one of the two teams' local coverage -- we'll see if they use Len & Bob. For today's other games see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
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