Preview for the May 8th Game

Preview for the May 8^th Game

St. Louis Cardinals (20-12) at Chicago Cubs (13-20)

The Chicago Cubs will be looking to sweep the Cards in their two game series against them. The game is at 2:20pm eastern time at the friendly confines. The probable starting pitcher for the Cubbies will be tough and tricky right-handed pitcher Carlos Villanueva. Villanueva is looking to go 2-2 on this season by getting a win against the Cards and improve on his an era of 2.85 and an amazing whip of just 0.93. If Carlos Villanueva wants to have a successful game against the Cardinals he is going to need to change his pitches types well and change the location of his pitches to keep the Cardinals hitters straight footed.

The probable starter for the Cards is the sinker ball thrower Jake Westbrook. The veteran right-handed pitcher is 2-1 on the year with an excellent era of 1.07 and a terrible whip of 1.40 which is misleading because with that bad of a whip you would expect Westbrook’s era to be higher and suggests that he has been a little lucky so far this season. The pitches that Westbrook relies on are a sinker ball which is his best pitch and most used pitch, a two seam fastball that has solid movement to it, a curve ball that he will use to strike batters out, a changeup that is mostly straight and a cutter that is effective against tough left-handed batters.

The Cubs hitters will be looking to evaluate the ball in the game today because Westbrook is a sinker ball pitcher and wants to the ball to be hit on the ground. If the Cubbies want to pull out the sweep they are going to need to run up Westbrook’s pitch count and get to the Cards bullpen, which has been one of the worst bullpens this year so far. The Cubs batters will be hoping the wind is blowing out today in Wrigley so that they can take advantage Westbrook and his sinker ball.

My prediction for today’s game is that the Cubs lose in a heartbreak with a score of 6 to 3. The Cubs got lucky yesterday because you can’t expect to beat the Cards by only scoring two runs in a game therefore they need to manufacture runs when they get the chances. I just believe the Carlos Villanueva has two consecutive bad starts and is out pitched by Westbrook. My predicted player of the game is Allen Craig, he went yard in last night’s game and I predict that he will hit another homer in this series with the Cubs because Villanueva tends  to give up the long ball too much in games.