Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Preview for the May 2nd Game


Preview for the May 2nd Game
San Diego Padres (10-17) at Chicago Cubs (11-16)

The Chicago Cubs will be looking to win their four game series against the San Diego Padres in tomorrow’s game. The game starts at 2:20pm eastern time at the Friendly Confines. If the Cubs can win tomorrow’s game they will win two consecutive four game series and creep closer to a .500 record. The Cubbies will be sending the reliable and crafty left-handed pitcher Travis Wood to the mound in their afternoon game against the Padres. Travis Wood has been arguably the best and most consistent pitcher the Cubbies have this season because he has pitched a quality start, which is when a starting pitcher goes at least six innings and doesn’t allow more than 3 earned runs in the game, in each and every start of his this season. Wood sports a record of 2-1 with an era of 2.25 and an excellent whip of 0.97. Travis Wood is going to need his cutter to be extremely effective in his start tomorrow because the Padres have hard hitting right-handed batters like Chase Headley and Carlos Quentin.

The opposing probable starting pitcher will be the left-handed Eric Stults, who has a 2-2 record with an era of 5.67. So far this season Stults has had some difficulties on the mound because in his last two starts he has gave up 5 earned runs in both outings. Stults has a typical pitching repertoire that consists of a fastball that sits in the high-80s, a changeup that is arguably his best pitch, a slider that can be nasty if he pitches it effectively, a curve ball that has some bite to it and a two seam fastball that he rarely throws.

The Cubbies will be facing another left-handed pitcher in their series with the Padres, let’s hope they can hit off this lefty as well as they did Clayton Richard. I normally say that the Cubs will struggle against a starting LHP, but not this time because I believe the Cubs hitters will have the advantage in this game because Stults tends to give up too many hits to be effective and has some bad track records against certain Cubs hitters. One of those hitters would be the former Giant Nate Schierholtz, who has a homered off Stults and is batting over .500 in nine career at-bats against him. Another Cubbie that has taken Stults out of the park is Alfonso Soriano.

My prediction of the game is that the Cubs will win their series against the Padres and therefore win in tomorrow’s game with a score of 5 to 2. I know that my predictions in the last couple of games have been off, but I couldn’t go against Travis Wood in this game. I predict that Wood will go 6.2 innings with six strikeouts and will allow 2 earned runs, but is not the player of the game. My predict player of the game is Alfonso Soriano because I believe he will not only hit one homer off Eric Stults, but will hit two homeruns off him.

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