Cubs Series Check-Point

My poor readers. Surely you were all refreshing this page constantly for the hour leading up to our first game with the Cubs on Thursday night, eager to read a preview and figure out exactly what you could expect over the course of the ensuing 4 games. Rather than feeling too bad about this, I am going to justify my actions by claiming that I had a plan for this all along and simply forgot to tell you about it. My extended Thursday afternoon nap had nothing to do with the lack of an update...

I actually do think this is a really good thing, though. With a lot of previews, I have no idea how the Phils or their opponent are going to play against each other. All I have to go off of is statistics that have been compiled over the past 5 years rather than statistics that we've gotten over the past 2 days. This may or may not mean a new trend in a preview of a 4-game series. Rather than previewing, I think a series check-point halfway through is a good idea. Where have we been, and where are we going? Hopefully, because of our successes and failures over the past 48 hours, we can figure out how to limit those to just successes over the next.

Side note before I get into the breakdown: I feel like I have a ton of stuff to write about that I simply haven't gotten a chance because I've basically been limiting myself to previews. For the most part, I plan on keeping things the way they've been this season, but I envision myself having some more time in a little over a week because of the end of school. I think I'm going to kick off my summer with the third edition of the Male Bag, so keep the questions coming! After that, hopefully we can get some more non-series related posts that are more centered on the Phillies in general this season. Previews are OK, but the other stuff is much more fun.

Game 1: Cubs 4 Phillies 3 (11 innings)
I didn't get to watch this entire game because of Trivia Night at The Perk (Interesting fact: the only food that can currently satisfy my hunger is a burger from The Perk. Frustrating? Yes, at times. But overall it's awesome after up to a week-long wait to fully enjoy life again). I did, however, watch the very end of regulation and all of extra innings. In looking back through the box score, one thing jumped out at me. What the heck are we doing with our pitchers? I realize that we had to take Kendrick out after the rain delay, but wouldn't that mean we should be a little more conservative with our bullpen? Check out the innings pitched by some of our relievers: Romero - 1/3; Stutes - 2/3; Bastardo - 2/3; Contreras - 2/3. Contreras, Bastardo, and Stutes should all be pitching 1 inning each. That makes up for one whole inning right there. Romero could barely pitch for the Clearwater Threshers right now, so I won't complain about his 1/3 of an inning. So how did this affect us? With 2 outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th, we had David Herndon trying to drive in the winning run. He's now 0 for 3 in his career with 3 strikeouts...not exactly our best option. Had we used our bullpen a little better, we would've been in a position to pinch hit.
Also, isn't it funny that we didn't pinch hit here? We're the home team, so the game would be over if we get a hit. I understand the risk of putting all of our eggs into one basket, but you have to feel kind of crappy if you're Wilson Valdez or Ross Gload. Uncle Chuck basically just turned to them and said "Blk...blp...bli, I, uhh, blp, glp... uh, don't, uhh, th-think you can, uh...glp get...get a hit." Thanks for the vote of confidence, Porky. It's not often that we'll lose a game on a Polanco error with Baseball making the last out, though. So you can't feel too bad about this.

Game 2:
Game 1 was a tough one to judge because of the rain delay, but Game 2 seemed to reveal something about the pitching staffs of these two teams right now: They are complete opposites. Through 2 games, the numbers for the starters:
Cubs - 8.2 IP, 10 H, 10 ER, 9 BB, 7 K, 3 HR, 10.38 ERA
Us - 10 IP, 8 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 11 K, 0 HR, 0.00 ERA

And the bullpens:
Cubs - 10.1 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 5 BB, 10 K, 0 HR, 0.00 ERA
Us - 10 IP, 13 H, 8 ER, 7 BB, 9 K, 1 HR, 7.20 ERA

The only other trend that I really noticed over the course of these 2 games was Starlin Castro loving to hit against us.

So, knowing all of that, I can now make 100% accurate predictions on the next 2 games. I actually heard they might cancel the games in favor of this blog post. Sorry if you had tickets.

Game 3: Matt Garza (2-5, 4.07 ERA) vs. Cliff Lee (5-5, 3.62 ERA)
The Phillies will win this game. Why, might you ask? Well, because Cliff Lee is pretty good at keeping his pitch count low, winning or losing. Because of that, we may be able to hold off for awhile on the bullpen. And the Cubs' inability to hit our starting pitchers makes me feel good about their inability to hit Cliff Lee. Although Starlin Castro is the brightest spot in the Cubs' order this series (4 for 10, 2 doubles), Lee has struck him out all 3 times he's faced him. And Starlin Castro doesn't really strike out. Carlos Pena has significant experience against Lee, including 3 homers, but overall is hitting just .207 against him (plus a whopping .067 against lefties this season) and has generally sucked against the Phils (see: 2008 World Series. Don't see: Game 1 of this series). Our bats have been hot early in these past 2 games, so I'm thinking we can get to Garza despite our lack of success against him. One thing that scares the Pittsburgh out of me: the only players with multiple lifetime hits against Garza are Gload (never plays), Francisco (can't hit), and Ibanez (ugh).
Prediction: Phils 5 Cubs 1
Keep an eye out for: Lee going 8 because he needs to

Game 4: Doug Davis (0-5, 6.38 ERA) vs. Roy Oswalt (3-4, 3.05 ERA)
Despite mediocre numbers against the Cubs in his career, Oswalt has overall good numbers against their current roster. And despite great numbers against the Phils players in his career, Davis has horrendous numbers against baseball teams this season. Davis has yet to give up less than 3 runs in a game, and he has pitched more than 5 innings just once this season. Once again, getting to him early will greatly benefit us, and hopefully we can do just that. It seems like Oswalt is still trying to hit his stride since coming back from everything he's been through this season. You kind of know that he will hit his stride eventually, so why not pick tonight against some very familiar uniforms for him?
Prediction: Phils 6 Cubs 3
Keep an eye out for: a 60% chance of thunderstorms. If this happens, you can throw my prediction out the window. Rain delays really mess stuff up. But maybe, if there is a rain delay, they will instead just go with my predicted result because of the 2 games' worth of evidence I used to make it. Yeah. Let's count on that