"The Great Gorzo" was the winner of Zeke's FanPost series to decide Tom Gorzelanny's nickname. With the Great Gorzo going tonight, the headline followed naturally.
Anyway, the Cubs need this win to split the series (and season series) with the Rockies, and have a .500 road trip, which is one way to make a playoff team (split on the road, win 2/3 of your games at home). Another way is to beat up on the bad teams and split with the good ones -- some here have complained that "the Cubs can't beat the good teams", noting they are 20-23 against teams which currently have winning records. The Cubs have recently won series vs. the Brewers and Astros when those teams began the series with a winning record, so quoting "currently" doesn't necessarily reflect what was going on at the time. I pointed out yesterday that the Cardinals have a 21-21 record vs. teams that currently have winning records.
I thought it would be instructive to take a look at other good teams' records against such teams. Currently, 16 of the 30 teams are over .500.
The Dodgers are 34-29 against those teams. The Rockies are 28-30. The Giants are 28-25. The Phillies are 27-28.
Hmmm. Looks like "good" teams in the National League pretty much split against each other. How about some of the AL teams?
The Yankees are 28-29 (even after sweeping Boston this past weekend). The Red Sox are also 28-29. The Angels are 31-33. And the Tigers are 26-25.
So it appears that most, if not all, of the contending teams this year are doing it by splitting with each other and beating up on the bad teams. The Cubs, at 20-23, are a little behind the rest, but not much.
Meanwhile, if Aramis Ramirez's shoulder is still bothering him after some more rest (likely today's game, too), further treatment may be necessary:
If a day or two of rest doesn't significantly improve the soreness in Aramis Ramirez's left shoulder, the next step could be a cortisone shot that sidelines the Cubs' cleanup hitter for at least two more games during a particularly tough stretch of opponents.
"We talked about it," said the third baseman, who was forced to leave Saturday's game in the fifth inning because of increasing soreness in the shoulder he dislocated early this season. "We'll see how it responds with some [oral] medicine first before we take that step.
"We don't have any days off here, so it's going to be a day that we play if we do it."
Let's hope that isn't needed and Aramis can return to the lineup tomorrow night against the Phillies.
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Jorge de la Rosa has never started against the Cubs, but didn't allow them a run in 6.1 relief innings over three appearances with the Brewers from 2004-06 and one with the Rockies last year. Alfonso Soriano is 2-for-3 vs. de la Rosa with a HR.
Tom Gorzelanny has made two starts against the Rockies, one of them in Coors Field on August 22, 2007. He gave up two runs (one earned) in six innings that day. If he can keep his sinker down tonight, I expect good results. No current Rockie has more than three career AB vs. Gorzelanny.
TV is back on cable-only tonight, CSN Chicago and FSN Rocky Mountain. For other games today see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
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Overflow comment threads will post today at 8:45 pm, 9:45 pm and 10:30 pm CDT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.