Padres 25-20
Cubs 20-23
POTG: LF Cliff Floyd (2 H, RBI)
Runner Up: 3B A Ram (2 H), LF Alfonso Soriano (3 BB, R), SS Cesar Izituris (3 H), RP Angel Guzman (1.2, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 H, 2 K)
What can you say about this game? The league’s caught up to Rich Hill, and the Cubs couldn’t do much against a superior pitcher. Hill’s pitches were all getting up, and I guess you can in fact hit high fast balls out of any stadium, including Petco Park. My big worry now is that this pitching staff has peaked – Hill and Marquis and Lily have done their best, and will be bringing it back down to average the rest of the season – and the peak couldn’t keep us over 500.
What was the deal with Dempster being brought in, for one batter? It’s not like people are going to start a closer controversy if Dempster doesn’t pitch the last batter of a four run loss and it’s not like Guzman was having any trouble or even threw many pitches (21, 16 strikes.)
It looks like the rotation is
Tue: Marshall
Wed: Marquis
Thu: Lilly (with an extra day off)
Fri: Zambrano (go check out the great article on his arm slot)
Sat: Hill
Marshall probably gets at least two starts if he’s fine, one start if he blows up – Miller could be in line to take that spot if Sean can’t lock it down, and I think they’ll be silly enough to give him another shot.
After reading that Z arm slot article, it’s starting to seem like – well, I don’t know he’s tragically injured, but I think he would have had a DL stint if he wasn’t a free agent at the end of this season.
The Padres own the Cubs. Khali Green really owns the Cubs on defense for whatever reason. You think it’d be the Cubs turn to own them at some point.