The Cubs ground the Pirates bones to make their bread a week or so ago, and after losing both ends of a doubleheader on Wednesday they’re likely pretty hungry again. Since then the Pirates have taken a series with the Cardinals and split a rain-shortened series with the puny Reds. As mentioned last time their offense has been their main driver, though they’ve fallen to third behind the Cubs and Cardinals since then.
Team Leaders
Buccos
- OBP: Francisco Cervelli (.403)
- ISO: Andrew McCutchen (.217)
- HR: McCutchen (7)
- R+RBI: Gregory Polanco (40)
- wRC+: Starling Marte (143)
- BSR: Marte (2.3)
- SP K/9: Francisco Liriano (10.03)
- SP BB/9: Gerrit Cole (3.24)
- SP FIP: Cole (3.13)
- RP K/9: Neftali Feliz (12.41)
- RP BB/9: Andrew Schugel (1.88)
- RP FIP: Mark Melancon (3.17)
- WAR: Marte (1.6)
The Pirates got Jung-Ho Kang back earlier this week. He seems pretty recovered from the knee injury suffered in that Coghlan slide debacle last year.
Cubs
- OBP: Dexter Fowler (.458)
- ISO: Anthony Rizzo (.333)
- HR: Rizzo (10)
- R+RBI: Rizzo (56)
- wRC+: Fowler (170)
- BSR: Fowler (2.7)
- SP K/9: John Lackey (8.75)
- SP BB/9: Kyle Hendricks (1.77)
- SP FIP: Hendricks (2.48)
- RP K/9: Hector Rondon (14.54)
- RP BB/9: Rondon (0.00)
- RP FIP: Rondon (-0.14)
- WAR: Fowler (2.4)
The Cubs have three different players with a .400+ OBP. Five if you count La Stella and Szczur, who don’t have a qualifying number of PAs. Unreal.
Pitching matchups
K/9, BB/9, ERA, FIP, Projected ERA listed for each pitcher.
Friday: Francisco Liriano, LHP (10.03, 4.89, 3.60, 4.52, 3.43) vs Jason Hammel, RHP (7.41, 3.71, 1.85, 3.24, 3.89), 1:20 pm CT
Liriano’s the kind of guy who has always given the Cubs fits, and some of these Cubs hitters in particular have a tough time with his excellent change up. He shut out the Cubs into the eighth inning in his last start against them, late in September, striking out nine and walking three. Given how walk-prone he is you’d think that on paper he would be someone this Cubs lineup would be able to wait out. but that changeup is just too enticing.
Saturday: Jeff Locke, LHP (6.06, 5.23, 4.68, 4.69, 4.32) vs Jake Arrieta, RHP (8.25, 3.00, 1.13, 2.60, 2.63), 1:20 pm CT
If Liriano is a Cub-killer, Locke is a Pirate-killer, at least when facing the Cubs. He’s a groundball lefty who issues far too many walks, and the Cubs have chased him early in every matchup going back to 2013. Pitcher-team matchup stats are dumb, but just think of how much better this Cubs lineup is than the 2013 Cubs.
Arrieta’s merely been really good this season instead of the pitching demigod that he was last season. His last few starts it’s seemed like the ain problem is that his pitches are movign too much. Hopefully David Ross catches him in this game after the mess that was FedEx’s attempt to catch those crazily moving pitches.
Sunday sunday sunday: Gerrit Cole, RHP (8.64, 3.24, 3.78, 3.13, 3.18) vs Jon Lester, LHP (8.22, 1.96, 1.96, 3.40, 3.12), 1:20 pm CT
Cole’s been solid by his rate stats this year, the only problem has been that the Pirates haven’t gotten much volume to go with them. Cole is only averaging five and a half innings per start, and it’s not just the Cubs who are driving up his pitch counts early in games. Lester had similar issues early in his last start against the Padres but still managed to go six innings.
To-day’s base ball squadrons
Pirates
- 1B Jaso
- CF Cutch
- RF Polanco
- LF Marte
- C Cervelli
- 3B Kang
- 2b Harrison
- SS Mercer
- P Liriano
Cubs
- CF Fowler
- RF Heyward
- 3B/1B/2B Bryzzobrist
- LF Soler
- SS Russell
- C Ross
- P Hammel