Results tagged ‘ Paul Maholm ’
6/27 Looking ahead
After an off day Thursday, the Cubs play host to the Astros at Wrigley Field. Here are the pitching matchups:
Friday: LHP Paul Maholm (4-6, 5.38) vs. RHP Bud Norris (5-4, 4.81)
Saturday: RHP Matt Garza (3-6, 4.06) vs. LHP J.A. Happ (6-7, 4.83)
Sunday: LHP Travis Wood (2-3, 3.54) vs. LHP Wandy Rodriguez (6-5, 3.52)
– Carrie Muskat
6/17 Sunday night baseball
* The Cubs did rally in the ninth, but came up short Sunday night in a 7-4 loss to the Red Sox.
“The thing that’s going on all year long is we get into close ballgames and something breaks down,” Dale Sveum said. “We can’t score if it’s close or we just can’t make a pitch when it’s close to hold them or shut them down to get the game into extra innings. We’ve got to be better at those things — somebody stepping up and getting a big hit when it counts, not when we’re four or five runs down.”
* Paul Maholm is 0-3 with a 5.59 ERA in his last seven starts. He gave up two runs in the first, and now has an 8.31 ERA in the first inning this season.
* Reed Johnson is batting .366 in his last 28 games dating to May 11.
* Now, the Cubs head eight miles south to U.S. Cellular Field to renew their intracity Interleague series against the White Sox.
“It’ll be loud and rowdy,” Johnson said. “That’s the atmosphere you want, especially now when you’re struggling as a team. You go into a place and know there will be a packed house and it makes it easier to concentrate than when you’re playing in an empty stadium. It’ll be a good series and I think we’re playing good baseball. It seems like we can’t do those little things to finish off a ballgame. We need to get better doing those things and those ballgames will start falling our way.”
– Carrie Muskat
6/17 Cubs lineup & extra bases
Paul Maholm is on the mound Sunday night when the Cubs close their three-game Interleague series against the Red Sox. Here’s the lineup:
Johnson RF
Barney 2B
Castro SS
Soriano LF
Baker 1B
Mather CF
Castillo C
Valbuena 3B
Maholm P
* Starlin Castro has started each of the Cubs’ first 65 games this season, and is one of two NL players to start all of the team’s games so far. The Braves’ Dan Uggla also has done so.
* The Cubs are batting .224 against southpaws this season, third lowest in the NL. They are 3-14 against left-handed starters, including a loss Saturday.
* The Cubs have lost 23 of their last 30 games since May 15, and 12 of those 23 losses have been by one run. Alfonso Soriano has provided much of the offense, hitting 12 homers in his last 30 games. He’s batting .294 in that stretch with seven doubles, 24 RBIs and a .688 slugging percentage.
* The Cubs are 3-8 in Interleague play, with three games remaining against the American League. They face their crosstown rivals, the White Sox, in a three-game set starting Monday night at U.S. Cellular Field. Pitching matchups:
Monday: Matt Garza (2-5, 4.04 ERA) vs. Zach Stewart (1-1, 5.18 ERA)
Tuesday: Travis Wood (0-3, 4.58 ERA) vs. Jake Peavy (6-2, 2.91 ERA)
Wednesday: Ryan Dempster (3-3, 2.11 ERA) vs. Gavin Floyd (4-7, 5.63 ERA)
* Happy birthday to bullpen coach Lester Strode, who is 54. He’s in his 24th season as a member of the Cubs organization.
– Carrie Muskat
6/12 Cubs lineup
It’s back to National League style baseball vs. an American League team as the Cubs open a six-game homestand against the Tigers and Red Sox. No DH, so Alfonso Soriano is back in left field for the Cubs. Prince Fielder has to be happy to be back at Wrigley Field. He has a career .298 batting average here with 11 homers and 15 RBIs. Here’s the lineup:
Campana CF
Castro SS
DeJesus RF
Soriano LF
LaHair 1B
Clevenger C
Barney 2B
Stewart 3B
Maholm P
– Carrie Muskat
6/10 Extra bases
* Sunday marks the end of a long road trip for the Cubs, who will have played 16 of 19 games on the road, traveling 6,770 air miles over the three-week stretch, which began in Pittsburgh May 21. On this current 10-game leg, which began in San Francisco, the Cubs are 1-8 and five of those losses have been decided by one run.
* The Cubs have not won a road series since Sept. 9-11, 2011, in New York against the Mets.
* Pitching matchups vs. the Tigers:
Tuesday: Paul Maholm (4-5, 5.10) vs. Max Scherzer (5-4, 5.88)
Wednesday: Matt Garza (2-4, 3.99) vs. Rick Porcello (3-4, 5.03)
Thursday: Travis Wood (0-2, 4.71) vs. Justin Verlander (5-4, 2.69)
– Carrie Muskat
6/6 Lineup & extra bases
Let’s see if the Cubs can win two in a row. Tuesday’s 10-0 win over the Brewers was their first double-digit shutout win since July 29, 2009, a 12-0 win over the Astros. Somehow, they won despite striking out a season-high 14 times, the first time they’ve done that since Aug. 14, 2011, in a 6-5 win at Atlanta. It’s only the second time in the last 50 years that the Cubs have totaled 14 Ks and at least 10 runs in a game. They also did so in an 11-4 win over the Braves April 12, 2000, at Wrigley FIeld.
Here’s Wednesday’s lineup:
Campana CF
Castro SS
DeJesus RF
Soriano LF
LaHair 1B
Clevenger C
Barney 2B
Stewart 3B
Maholm P
* Alfonso Soriano was homer-less in his first 30 games, and now has hit nine in his last 20 games, and at least one each of the last eight series.
* Since May 28, the Cubs ‘pen leads the Major Leagues with the lowest ERA at 1.27, giving up three earned runs over 21 1/3 innings.
– Carrie Muskat
6/1 Cubs lineup
Tony Campana is leading off Friday night for the Cubs as they open a four-game series against the Giants at AT&T Park. It’s the second time this season Campana has led off. The Cubs are 10-11 when he starts. Here’s the lineup against lefty Madison Bumgarner:
Campana CF
Castro SS
Mather 3B
Soriano LF
Johnson RF
Baker 1B
Barney 2B
Clevenger C
Maholm P
– Carrie Muskat
5/26 Extra bases
Paul Maholm is the perfect pitcher to have on the mound Saturday night for the Cubs as they try to end a 10-game losing streak. Maholm faces his former team, the Pirates, for the first time, and returns to the ballpark where he is the all-time winningest pitcher with 35 W’s. He has more strikeouts (361) and games started (96) at PNC park than any other pitcher. In the last 75 years, only five lefty pitchers have more wins with the Pirates than Maholm (53 total wins): John Candelaria (124 wins), Bob Veale (116), Jim Rooker (82), Jerry Reuss (61) and John Smiley (60).
* The Cubs’ 10-game skid is the 15th double-digit losing streak in club history, and the first since they opened the 1997 season 0-14. The Cubs have posted 10 losing streaks of 11 or more games in team history.
* Why are they losing? They are hitless in their last 25 at-bats with runners in scoring position, going 0-for-4 Tuesday, 0-for-9 on Wednesday, and 0-for-12 Friday. Including a 4-for-15 effort Monday in Houston, the Cubs are batting .100 (4-for-40) with RISP in the last four games and hitting .327 in all other situations during those four contests.
* They’ve lost all four games despite out-hitting the opponent in every game. The last time they lost four straight games when collecting more hits than their opponent was June 20-23, 1991, against the Giants. They’ve only scored in four of the last 56 innings, and the last two runs have come via solo homers.
– Carrie Muskat
5/20 Intracity Interleague notes
* The Cubs won nine of 10 from the White Sox from July 2, 2006-June 22, 2008, but have lost 18 of the last 24 games against them. The White Sox sweep, completed Sunday with a 6-0 win, was their first at Wrigley Field since June 11-13, 1999.
* Alfonso Soriano is batting .311 with six doubles, three homers and 11 RBIs in 16 May games.
* Paul Maholm took the loss, but he has thrown six or more innings in six straight starts for the first time since a stretch of seven in a row, May 15-June 18, 2010.
“Before the last inning, he made three bad pitches and other than that it was as good a stuff as he’s had all year long,” Dale Sveum said. “That was too bad.”
Those three bad pitches resulted in White Sox home runs.
* The Cubs went 0-for-the homestand. The last time that happened for at least five games was June 13-18, 2006, when they went 0-6 against the Astros and Tigers.
– Carrie Muskat
5/15 Extra bases
Paul Maholm closes the Cubs quickie two-game series in St. Louis today, and the team then heads home for another two-game set against the Phillies, starting Wednesday night.
* Shawn Camp won his second straight game on Monday, and is the first Cubs pitcher to win consecutive games since Jeff Samardzija did so last June 13-14 against the Brewers.
* Bryan LaHair has reached base safely in a team-high 31 straight games. Only four Cubs first basemen since 1945 have had longer streaks:
Phil Cavarretta: 32 games, June 10-July 12, 1945
Andre Thornton: 33 games, Aug. 5-Sept. 13, 1975
Bill Buckner: 32 games, April 9-Aug. 10, 1981
Derrek Lee: 32 games, April 2-May 10, 2007
* LaHair’s streak is second-longest in the Major Leagues, trailing the Rangers’ Elvis Andrus (32 games)
* Ian Stewart needs one RBI for 200.
* Pitching matchups against the Phillies:
RHP Matt Garza (2-1, 2.56) vs. RHP Vance Worley (3-2, 3.07)
Thursday: RHP Chris Volstad (0-5, 6.92) vs. RHP Roy Halladay (3-3, 3.20)
* Looking ahead to the Cubs Interleague series vs. the White Sox, it’ll be Philip Humber vs. Samardzija on Friday; John Danks vs. Ryan Dempster on Saturday; and Jake Peavy vs. Maholm on Sunday at Wrigley Field.
– Carrie Muskat
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