Preview for the April 19th Game

Preview for the April 19^th Game

Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee Brewers

The Chicago Cubs will have their second series against division rival, the Milwaukee Brewers. The game will be played at Miller Park at 8:10pm eastern time. The Cubbies spilt their series against the Brewers going 1-1, the series was shortened because one of the games in the series got postponed. The Cubs don’t need to worry about having any rainouts in this series because Miller Park has retractable roof. The Chicago Cubs are coming off one of their best games of the year so far, but the Brewers are coming off a sweep by the San Francisco Giants. The Cubs will be sending their ace to the mound in tomorrow’s game Jeff Samardzija, who has begun the season extremely well going 1-2 with an era of 2.75 and a WHIP below 1. Samardzija has been striking out batters at a high clip and is one of the leaders in the majors in K’s. Jeff Samardzija needs to keep the ball in the park if he wants to pull out a victory in tomorrow’s game because the Brew Crew hit several homers in their series against the Giants and also because Miller Park is susceptible to homeruns.

The probable pitcher for the Brewers will be RHP Marco Estrada who is having a solid season by going 1-0 with an era of 4.50. Estrada’s best pitching performance was earlier this season against the Chicago Cubs which is only win in the season by going 7 innings and only gave up two earned runs. The reason Estrada was so successful against the Cubbies was because of his changeup and the fact that the Cubs hitters just couldn’t read that pitch coming out his hand.  Estrada only really has three pitches a four seam fastball, a two seam fastball and a changeup, but still is an effective pitcher because he has great command on his pitches.

The Chicago Cubs hitters are going to need to do what they did against the Rangers in the ninth inning in the April 16^th game and how they hit in today’s game. Marco Estrada held the Cubs batters to only 5 hits and walked one batter in his last start against the Cubbies. One of those 5 hits that Estrada gave up to the Cubs was a two run homerun to Welington Castillo in the bottom of the second inning. The Cubs will need to rely on the hot bat of Nate Schierholtz because he is getting timely hits for the Cubs and has great plate discipline this year with only 5 strikeouts.

My prediction for tomorrow’s game is that Marco Estrada will lose his second game against the Cubs this year because the Cubbies will take advantage of his pitch selection and will be able to read his pitches out of his hand better. The Chicago Cubs will win with a score of 5 to 1. My predicted player of the game will be Jeff Samardzija by going 8 innings with 10 strikeouts and will only give up one earned run in his start. I’m also predicting that Nate Schierholtz will have another solid game by going 3 for 5 with a couple extra base hits, Luis Valbuena will have a homer in the game and Darwin Barney will get his first hit of the season.