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So let's have some fun this morning, because honestly, the Cubs aren't giving us much to enjoy on the field.
Take a look at the Ozzie Guillen photo above, which was taken right after Wednesday night's game. What is Ozzie saying? Leave your caption in the comments.
The Cubs do have a chance to win one game in this series, if they can take this afternoon's game. Each team that takes the field in a major-league game does have a chance to win it. How big a chance, I'm not saying. What will be interesting to see, if the team does lose and gets swept by the Marlins and comes home with a five-game losing streak, is the size of the crowd at Friday's game against the Reds. The weather forecast for Friday looks pretty dismal.
As noted in the comments to the very brief recap to Wednesday night's game, this year is beginning to have a 1997-type feel to it; that year, which began with a 14-game losing streak, was pretty much over by the end of April. I am by nature an optimist; I knew this wasn't going to be a year I could go in truly hoping the Cubs could pull off a miracle and contend or make the playoffs.
But I didn't think they'd look this listless, confused and lost, just 12 games in, either.
Cubs lineup:
DeJesus RF, Barney 2B, Castro SS, Soriano LF, Stewart 3B, LaHair 1B, Soto C, Byrd CF, Samardzija P
I don't usually bitch too much about lineups. But Alfonso Soriano is 4-for-22 lifetime against Ricky Nolasco (though two of the four hits are home runs). Reed Johnson, on the other hand, is 1-for-1 -- a home run. Why not rest Soriano today?
Marlins lineup:
Reyes ss, Bonifacio cf, Ramirez 3b, Morrison lf, Stanton rf, Dobbs 1b, Murphy 2b, Hayes c, Nolasco p
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Lifetime against the Marlins, Jeff Samardzija has 10 appearances (one start) and a 3.78 ERA in 16⅔ innings. He's made one good start and one mediocre one so far this year, and current Marlins are hitting (in a very small sample size) .235 against him (8-for-34), with no home runs. What does this tell us about what might happen today? Probably nothing.
Fun fact about Ricky Nolasco that I did not know: his given first name is "Carlos" (full name: Carlos Enrique Nolasco). In 2011, he made two starts against the Cubs, throwing 13 innings and allowing five earned runs. The Cubs won both games, which perhaps could give us some hope. Current Cubs, though, are hitting just .218 (17-for-78) against Nolasco.
Today's game is on WGN. It's also being picked up by MLB Network, so if you're in a non-WGN area and have MLBN, you should be able to see it. Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Marlins site Fish Stripes.
Today's first pitch thread will post at 11:40 a.m. CDT and the overflows at 12:40, 1:40 and 2:25 p.m. CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings, post them in the fanshot section.
Discuss amongst yourselves.