Chicago Cubs vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Preview, Monday 9/17, 7:05 CT

I wrote about this topic this morning for Baseball Nation, but I think we should have another look at yesterday's Darwin Barney first-inning play here at BCB, and what Len and Bob said about it on WGN's telecast:

LEN: There's a bouncer, and Darwin Barney throws late, and... that might be an error. It should be an error... ooh, a base hit? ... Wow... (after pause of several seconds) ... Hmm. Well, as much as we'd like to see the streak continue for Darwin Barney... (another longish pause) ... that looks like an error to me.

BOB: He made it a little tougher play than it had to be by trying to get in front right there, kind of was caught in between whether to throw backhanded or take one more step and get in front of the ball...

LEN: Official scorer Allan Spear immediately called it a hit... so the streak, for now, continues.

Here's a New York Times article from earlier this year that detailed another Spear scoring call that was questioned by announcers, in that case during the Red Sox/Cubs Sunday Night ESPN game, and also the appeals process for changing a scorer's call.

I know, I know. You guys all think I'm making too big a deal of this. As I wrote at BN, I think there needs to be an impartial observer -- meaning, a league employee, preferably another umpire -- making these decisions. Having an extra umpire in the press box doing this job could also have him be assigned to do replay reviews. Win-win, in my opinion.

Cubs lineup:

DeJesus RF, Valbuena 3B, Rizzo 1B, Soriano LF, Castro SS, Castillo C, Jackson CF, Barney 2B, Wood P

Pirates lineup:

Marte LF, Tabata RF, McCutchen CF, Sanchez 1B, Alvarez 3B, McKenry C, Barmes SS, Holt 2B, Correia P

Today's Starting Pitchers

Travis Wood Cubs vs. Kevin Correia Pirates 6-11 W-L 10-9 4.23 ERA 4.29 97 SO 67 43 BB 42 23 HR 17 vs. Pit -- vs. Cubs

Travis Wood threw six innings against the Pirates and gave up just one hit September 7 in Pittsburgh. Since August 1 Wood has posted a 3.20 ERA in nine starts covering 56⅓ innings (averaging more than six innings per start, with only six home runs allowed. He's improving with every outing; this is a good sign for 2013, I think.

Here's a real good summary of the Pirates' season. Kevin Correia was removed from their rotation just after his last start against the Cubs -- a start in which he threw six pretty good innings. He bounced back and forth between rotation and bullpen, pitching well in neither role, before being restored to the rotation two weeks ago. Since then he's had two starts in which he's thrown... six pretty good innings in each. I suspect we'll see the same tonight. Current Cubs are hitting .305 (24-for-82) against Correia with three home runs (two of them by Alfonso Soriano). Maybe we're not doomed tonight.

Today's game is on CSN Chicago.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Pirates site Bucs Dugout.

Today's first pitch thread will post at 7:05 p.m. CDT and the overflows at 8:05, 9:05 and 9:50 p.m. CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section. Also please note: due to some under-the-hood changes, the sidebar box with the game thread links is no longer available. It seems you've found them with no problems, but if you haven't been able to find the overflow threads, click the "Chicago Cubs Game Threads" link under "Sections" on the left sidebar. They're all in there.

Discuss amongst yourselves.