You might not have expected this on a day when the Cubs are far out of playoff contention, but the Fox-TV people have chosen the Cubs/Cardinals matchup as their primary feature game this afternoon.
The other two games are Padres/Giants (which will be shown in most of the Mountain and Pacific time zones) and Orioles/Rays (New England, Florida, Maryland, New York State, Washington, DC and Dallas). If you live anywhere else, you should be getting the Cubs game in your market -- "check local listings". If you're wondering why Dallas is getting Orioles/Rays, it's because the Rangers are playing the Red Sox tonight, and the Red Sox currently trail the Rays by four games in the AL wild card race.
Announcers for the Cubs game will be Kenny Albert, Tim McCarver and Ken Rosenthal. We're spared Joe Buck today (he's off at NFL production meetings this weekend), but Kenny Albert isn't much better.
And one more thing about Kenny Albert. He has called one other game for Fox at Busch Stadium this year, an April 17 matchup between the Cardinals and Mets. The game went 20 innings and ended just before 10 pm. Just sayin'.
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Chris Carpenter is having another fine year for the Cardinals. He has already faced the Cubs twice this year, with a win and a no-decision (in a game the Cardinals won) and a 2.63 ERA in 13.2 innings. Alfonso Soriano is the Cub who hits him best (13-for-39, .333, a double, two HR, seven RBI).
Carlos Zambrano has not faced the Cardinals as a starter this year; he has two scoreless relief appearances against them (1.2 innings). Interestingly enough, as long as these two pitchers have been with their teams, the last time they faced each other was July 30, 2006; the Cubs won that game in a season very similar to this one. Albert Pujols has hit five homers off Z, but otherwise is hitting a pedestrian .262 against him (16-for-61, nine walks).
Lineup via Bruce Miles' blog:
Fukudome RF; Castro SS; Lee 1B; Ramirez 3B; Colvin LF; Byrd CF; DeWitt 2B; Hill C; Zambrano P
As noted above, today's game is on Fox. Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Cardinals site Viva el Birdos.
Tonight's first pitch thread will be up at 3 pm CDT, and the overflows will post at 4 pm, 5 pm and 5:45 pm CDT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.