{"id":16113,"date":"2011-06-15T13:48:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T18:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16113"},"modified":"2011-06-15T13:48:58","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T18:48:58","slug":"zambranos-test-veteran-pitcher-seeks-to-back-up-words-against-the-strong-milwaukee-brewers-betting-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/zambranos-test-veteran-pitcher-seeks-to-back-up-words-against-the-strong-milwaukee-brewers-betting-preview-16113\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambrano’s Test: Veteran Pitcher seeks to Back up Words Against the Strong Milwaukee Brewers – Betting Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee Brewers (38-30) AT Chicago Cubs (27-39)<\/strong>
\nJune 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 CHC -115, MIL -105<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 CHC -114, MIL -105<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 8.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 8.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 MIL- Chris Narveson; CHC- Carlos Zambrano<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Carlos Zambrano's ERA is over 4 this season after having been under 4 for the last 3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Positives have to be drawn where ever they can when a team is 12 games below .500.\u00a0 For the Cubs, that positive is that they have won back to back games and could win their third straight tonight.\u00a0 They haven’t won three straight all season.<\/p>\n

Carlos Zambrano was anything but accepting of his teammates as they dropped 13 of 16 games and Zambrano called the Cubs’ play “embarassing.”\u00a0 He applogized, but an appology seems out of place given the accuracy of his statement.\u00a0 It’s never good to rag on teammates, but maybe they got the message.\u00a0 He was particuarly critical of the Cubs closer Carlos Marmol.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is that Zambrano hasn’t been particularly impressive himself.\u00a0 He’s plodding along with an ERA over four (4.40) and has only won 5 of his 8 decisions.\u00a0 He gave up 7 runs in the loss to the Phillies on Friday and also issued seven walks, a career worst for Zambrano.\u00a0 \u201cToo many walks,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do that against teams like this. Next time I will make an adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zambrano’s ERA has been under 4 for the past three seasons, but Baseball Prospectus predicted this drop off, as their predicted PECOTA projection for his ERA was 4.32, and his WHIP was projected to be 1.45 as well.<\/p>\n

The Brewers will be sending Chris Narveson to the mound, who has had success against the Cubs.\u00a0 In his three career starts against the Cubs, he is 3-0 with a 0.98 ERA.\u00a0 He allowed only 6 hits in 7 innings on April 9th against the Cubs and shut them out.\u00a0 He lasted eight innings in Friday’s shutout win over the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you always need an outing like this,\u201d\u00a0 Narveson remarked. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a good feeling to be able to go out there and just go out and get back to base one and get yourself set.\u201d<\/p>\n

Narveson spent TEN years in the minors, so he’s not a typical rookie.\u00a0 His 4.99 ERA last season was deceiving as his stuff looked better than a 5 run a game pitcher would have.\u00a0 His fastball isn’t overwhelming, in the upper 80s, but his off-speed pitches make it more effective than it might be otherwise.\u00a0 His projected ERA for this season according to Baseball Prospectus is 5.51 and he has been much better than that with a 4.32 ERA.\u00a0 He was projected to only pitch 58 innings, but has become a crucial rotation starter who will obviously log much more than that.<\/p>\n

Last night, the Brewers failed to hold their 3 run lead in a 10 inning loss.\u00a0 The Cubs received strong outings from Aramis Ramirez and Starlin Castro, who hit the game ending single, as one of his three hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made some mistakes early and didn\u2019t do ourselves any favors,\u201d Brewers manager Mike Quade said.\u00a0 \u201cThere were about a half-dozen plays and things I saw that I\u2019m not very happy about and they damn near cost us. But they kept playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alfonso Soriano has been rehabbing a strained quadricep muscle at AAA Iowa.\u00a0 The Cubs may activate him today.\u00a0 He’s hit 12 homers this year, which leads the Cubs.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Milwaukee is 17-7 SU in their last 24 games and the total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 on the road.\u00a0 The Brewers are 4-2 SU in their last 6 on the road and they are 3-6 SU in their last 9 games against the Cubs.\u00a0 The Total has gone OVER in 9 of Milwaukee’s last 11 games on the road against the Cubs.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Cubs are 4-11 SU in their last 15 games and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 6 at home.\u00a0 The Cubs are 6-3 SU in their last 9 games against the Milwaukee Brewers and the total has gone OVER in 9 of the last 11 games at home against Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

Zambrano is going to have to back his previous words up with a strong outing, no matter whether he apologized or not.\u00a0 The fact remains that he hasn’t been that good, and the Cubs have been horrible.\u00a0 Milwaukee was shut out in the opener and managed 4 runs last night, so they will have to improve on that statistic of 2 runs per game to give Narveson ample run support to pick up the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee Brewers (38-30) AT Chicago Cubs (27-39) June 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM EST Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 CHC -115, MIL -105 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 CHC -114, MIL -105 Opening Total:\u00a0 8.5 Current Total:\u00a0 8.5 SP:\u00a0 MIL- Chris Narveson; CHC- Carlos Zambrano Positives have to be drawn where ever they can when a team is 12 games below […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[180,266],"class_list":["post-16113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-milwaukee-brewers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16115,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16113\/revisions\/16115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}