Preview for the April 24th Game

Preview for the April 24^th Game

Chicago Cubs (6-13) at Cincinnati Reds (12-9)

The Chicago Cubs will be looking to get a victory in their rubber match against the Cincinnati Reds. The game will be played at the Great American Ballpark at 12:35pm eastern time. The Cubs and Reds will try to avoid another extra innings game in their series finale. The Cubbies will be sending Jeff Samardzija to the mound in their game. Samardzija is off to a good start to the year by going 1-3 with an era 3.38, but is coming off a start in which he gave up 4 earned runs. Jeff Samardzija has limited his walk total since his start against the Atlanta Braves therefore if he can keep that up he can do damage to lineups. However, his strikeout rate has gone down since the Braves game. If Samardzija can prevent the big inning, like the one that he gave up to the Brewers in his last start by getting the Reds hottest hitters out, Shin-Soo Choo.

The Reds will be sending the tough, talented RHP pitcher Mat Latos to the mound, who has no decisions in his first four starts of year, but has a stellar era of 2.73. Latos has thrown a quality start in each of his starts this season and is coming off his best outing by going 7 strong innings allowing one earned run and striking out 10 Miami Marlins hitters. The pitches in his pitching repertoire are a four seam fastball that can reach the mid-90s but is usually in the low-90s, a two seam fastball that has good movement to it, a slider that can be nasty, a cutter that is effective against the lefties and a changeup that he rarely uses. Latos is an extremely effective pitcher and will be a tough matchup for the Cubbies.

The Cubs hitters will look to have success against the Reds by out hitting the Reds batters in all three games in the series. In order for the Cubs to have success in tomorrow’s game is by not striking out in the double digits like they did in the first two games against the Reds. Dioner Navarro should be in the lineup tomorrow because of the early start and will try to impress one of his former teams. Also, Anthony Rizzo will try to break out of his little hitting slump in tomorrow’s game because he struck out six times already in this series against the Reds.

My prediction of the game is that the Cubbies will pull out a series winning game against the Reds in the rubber game with a score of 2 to 0. I boldly predict that Samardzija will pitch a shutout in tomorrow’s game and have 12 punch outs in the game therefore making Samardzija my predicted player of the game. I also predict that Navarro will have a solid performance in tomorrow’s game and that David DeJesus will go 3 for 4 with an extra base hit.

I will be posting my game analyses of April 22nd and 23rd's games tomorrow because I had to study for a final tonight.