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At last, weather that says "spring" more than "winter" in Chicago, though rain gear might still be required:
This Afternoon: Partly sunny, with a high near 7O. South wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 2O mph. Tonight: A 3O percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 57. South wind 1O to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 2O mph.
Wind blowing out, too, good for ballhawks. The rain, actually, is supposed to stay well north of Wrigley Field, so it could be a pleasant night for baseball. What a concept!
Here's an interesting article about Wrigley rooftops from the Wall Street Journal; it talks about a court case involving rooftop views of a major-league ballpark... in the 19th Century. We certainly haven't heard the last of this.
Once again, though I think the Padres are a better team than the Marlins, I will be disappointed if the Cubs don't win at least three of four in this series.
Finally, here's some awesome news: MLB highlights are now available on YouTube via MLB's own channel. You can subscribe to it; there's also a MLB Classics channel and separate highlight feeds for every year since 2009. Well done, MLB. What took you so long?
Cubs lineup:
Sappelt CF, Castro SS, Rizzo 1B, Soriano LF, Castillo C, Hairston RF, Ransom 3B, Barney 2B, Samardzija P
This fantastic lineup has resulted in a 2-4 record vs. left-handed starters so far this year. How long does this have to go before Dale Sveum tries something else?
The Padres lineup was not available at the time I wrote this post. Check the BCB Twitter feed for the Padres lineup.
Today's Starting Pitchers |
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Jeff Samardzija is off to a solid start this year. He had two solid starts against the Padres in 2012, throwing 14 total innings and giving up four earned runs, striking out 18. The Cubs even won one of those games! (The one at Wrigley; you know how much trouble the Cubs had winning on the West Coast in 2012.) Current Padres are a small-sample-size 12-for-59 (.203) against him; Carlos Quentin is the only one who's homered.
Clayton Richard was Shark's opponent in the game he pitched in San Diego August 8, 2012; Shark threw well, but the Cubs could not score off Richard, who threw a five-hit shutout. Richard is off to a terrible start this year, with a 7.94 ERA and 2.00 WHIP and four home runs allowed in 17 innings. Let's hope the Cubs can continue that for him tonight.
Today's game is on CSN Chicago.
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Padres site Gaslamp Ball. Be careful over there.
Here's the scoop on game threads for 2013. You'll find the game preview -- like this one -- posting as the first link in the StoryStream™, which will then contain all the overflow threads and the recap. The recap will also be on the front page as a separate post; once I post a game recap, the stream for each game will be retitled "Cubs vs. (Team) (Day of Week) Game Threads" so you can go back and find every thread related to that particular game.
In general, game previews will post two hours before game time. Exception: for day games after night games, that will usually be 90 minutes.
You will also be able to find the First Pitch Thread and all the overflow threads in the box marked "Chicago Cubs Game Threads" at the bottom of the front page (you can also find them in this section link). They will also appear in this StoryStream™. As I've done for each regular-season game for several years now, we'll have the First Pitch thread at five minutes before game time (moved up from actual game time per your requests), then an overflow one hour, two hours and 2:45 after game time.
Discuss amongst yourselves.