Fish fry
Home again home again, jiggety-jig. –Mother Goose
Indeed. It’s four against the Marlins (Actual W-L: 53-47, Pythagorean W-L: 48-52) at Wrigley, starting tomorrow. 7:05, 1:20, 12:05, and 1:20 Central are the respective start times. This is our first encounter with the Fish this year. What’s good for the Goose is good for a gander at some match-ups:
- Thu. July 24th, Zambrano (2.98 ERA, 1.26 WHIP) vs. Olsen (3.84, 1.29)
- Fri. July 25th, Dempster (3.05, 1.16) vs. Johnson (3.86, 1.37, 11 2/3 IP)
- Sat. July 26th, Harden (2.12, 1.11) vs. Volstad (2.16, 1.14, 16 2/3 IP)
- Sun. July 27th, Marquis (4.44, 1.41) vs. VandenHurk (6.10, 1.94, 10 1/3 IP)
Speaking of Henricus “Rick” VandenHurk, he’s the only current major leaguer from the Netherlands (Eindhoven to be precise) and one of only seven Nederlanders ever in MLB. Notable among those, possible future Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven, who hails from Zeist. VandenHurk is also quite high on the list of “most capital letters in a MLB player’s last name.” But I digress.
Statistical summation:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB
CHC 100 3482 520 968 201 13 111 491 393 736 .278 .355 .439 53
FLA 100 3432 480 870 174 16 141 463 310 838 .253 .320 .437 49
G ERA W L SV GS GF IP H R ER HR BB SO
CHC 100 3.87 58 42 29 100 99 898.3 836 418 386 102 337 739
FLA 100 4.58 53 47 20 100 100 895.3 895 505 456 107 393 678
The Cubs really should take 3 or 4 here. After this series, we head to Milwaukee (one game back) for four games, in what will definitely be the most significant series thus far. After that, it’s home for nine against other Central foes, including the Cards (three games back).
The Cubs have 61 (regular season) games remaining: 10 against the Brewers and 9 against the Cardinals, 32 home games and 29 away games, and the rest of our opponents have a collective .509 winning percentage.
