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second time in 2 weeks... so, I'm going to use what I had last week without so much of the confidence...
still last in mlb, but tied with the rockies now. there's still been a lot of chatter of them trading away their chips (dempster, garza, etc) but nothing's happened yet.
C: Geovany Soto, a career 252 hitter, is no longer the promising young catcher. currently sporting a 170 average, 5 hr's, he did recently come off the dl, and has hit 333 in 12 AB's since, with 2 hrs. that was 2 weeks ago. now, it's 167 ave, 6hr's.
1B: Anthony Rizzo: he came up during our last series, so we got a chance to see him. in 35 ab's since, he's hit 314 with 3 hr's. in his short season, he's living up to the hype so far.
2B: Darwin, "the purple dino" Barney. a servicable 2bman, who seems to get a few timely hits here and there, flashes a decent glove, shows a little speed, but has been on a mini-slump as of late. 269/3/22...2 weeks ago. now he's 262/3/23..but he's made no errors since april. solid glove.
SS: Starlin Castro. with a name like that, you'd think he's a premadonna dictator. easily the bright "star" of their future, 22 year old ss sports a 300/6/38 with 16 sb. he started off the year batting 3rd, but has now settled into the 2 hole, and no, that's not the hole where your #2 comes out of. The biggest knock on him though is that his mind is elsewhere. recently, he made a baserunning mistake, losing track of the ball, and then a couple days later, with the bases loaded, he had a possible double play ball. he stepped on second, and thought that the inning was over. instead it was 2 outs, and a run scored. talented, but..well, still young i suppose.
in the last 15 days, he's hit .204, 0 home runs, 2 rbi's. since june 24th, he's hit .143 with no extra base hits
3b: Luis Valbuena: while ian stewart is on the dl, this schmo has filled in , batting 1-14 over the last few games. we could see a little joe mather in here as well, if valbuena continues his torrid hitting.one home run and 4 rbi's since our series, he seems firmly entrenched in the 3b slot
LF: Alfonso Soriano. while overpaid, he has continued to show power, with 14 hr's & 44 rbi's. his speed is mostly gone now, but still, one of two hitters that could may be feared.1 hr/rbi since our series, he may be in the midst of a mini slump
CF: Tony Campana: a speedy little guy, who in his short 51 games played, has 24 sb's. he has sat to Reed Johnson when a lefty is up who can hit a bit better, but has no speed compared to Campana. and then there's David Dejesus who's seems to get more playing time to show that he can't hit that well. but all this may be for naught because.....Dejesus has been the starting CF'er now with campana getting brief looks. he's hit ok average wise, but without much noise...0 rbi's since our last meeting
RF: Brian LaHair...mr minor leaguer who came on the scene this year with a 286 average, and 13 home runs. he's hit a slight mini-slump coming into this series, going 3-17 in the last 7 games. there's talk of a Rizzo coming up, so more on him later newly peer-elected allstar got shifted to RF for super prospect. his hitting has come back since our last meeting, with a few multi-hit games, a homerun, and a pair of rbi's. he's also been getting a couple looks against lefties...something they didn't do earlier this season.
Pitching matchups.
Santana vs Travis Wood(3-3) coming off his first win of the season, he faces our ace. he has a 4+ era, and a record showing his mediocre-ness.two wins since the last kte, one vs us, and the other vs houston.
Gee vs Samardzija(6-7) he took over Dempster's spot in the rotation, and lasted 3.2 innings, giving up 3 earned runs. we'll most likely see a few relievers in this game, so, it would be nice to get to the pen early today to tire them out for the second game as well. after the loss against us, he got a win against the braves on monday
Niese vs ? no pitcher scheduled as of yet.
the pen: perhaps rivaling our own pen for one of the worst in the league, they've rotated around closers, with Carlos Marmol only recently regaining the closer position. he currently has a 5.85 era and 4 saves on the year others in the pen are James russell, their lefty, sean camp, casey coleman, and a few other scrubs.
marmol has had a few good games with 4 saves since this last kte and an inning in a non-save situation. still their bullpen has not been that great.
ex mets in cubs: none that I know of.
ex cubs in mets: Miguel batista, Rony Cedeno,
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