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This is about as big a mismatch as you'll see anywhere in baseball.
The Cubs are 6-17 this month, and 4-8 on the road in August.
The Dodgers are 19-5 this month, although they have just lost two straight home games for the first time since June. That was to a good team, the Red Sox. The Cubs aren't a good team. The Dodgers are 46-12 since June 21 and 11-4 at home since the All-Star break.
I'll frankly be shocked if the Cubs win even one game in this series.
Cubs lineup:
Castro SS, Lake CF, Rizzo 1B, Schierholtz RF, Bogusevic LF, Murphy 3B, Castillo C, Barney 2B, Arrieta P
This article has a dateline of yesterday, August 25:
As of now, Anthony Rizzo will stay in the No. 2 spot in the Cubs' batting order. Manager Dale Sveum doesn't see any reason for a change.
Guess Dale found a reason in 24 hours, because Rizzo's batting third tonight. Rizzo was 7-for-24 (.292) with two HR and four walks batting second.
Dodgers lineup:
Crawford LF, Puig RF, Gonzalez 1B, Ramirez SS, Ethier CF, AJ Ellis C, M.Ellis 2B, Uribe 3B, Greinke P
Today's Starting Pitchers |
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Jake Arrieta has faced the Dodgers this year. In April, in Baltimore, when L.A. wasn't doing well. Trust me, you do not want to look at the results. (Don't say I didn't warn you.) Arrieta has never pitched at Dodger Stadium; he has a tendency sometimes to get too amped up and overthrow. He has two good starts and one bad one as a Cub; I wouldn't expect tonight's to finish in the "good" category. Hope I'm wrong. His numbers above are combined between the Cubs and Orioles; here are his Cubs-only numbers:
When the Dodgers faced the Cubs at Wrigley earlier this month, they specifically pushed Zack Greinke out of the series, saying they wanted him to face the Cardinals. While that might be true, this is also true: Greinke career at Wrigley, in two starts: nine innings, 14.00 ERA, 2.222 WHIP. Greinke against the Cubs, not at Wrigley Field: three starts, 21⅓ innings, one earned run (0.42 ERA), 0.75 WHIP. Greinke is having one of the best years of his career; he has a 2.32 ERA and 0.97 WHIP at home, and current Cubs are 10-for-37 (.270) against him with no home runs. This, my friends, is the Doom Hall of Fame.
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 Dodgers site True Blue LA.
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.