{"id":16173,"date":"2011-06-20T12:14:07","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T17:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16173"},"modified":"2011-06-20T12:14:07","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T17:14:07","slug":"battle-for-chicago-cubs-visit-white-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/battle-for-chicago-cubs-visit-white-sox-16173\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle For Chicago: Cubs Visit White Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cubs (29-42) AT White Sox (35-38)<\/strong>
\nJun 20, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 WS -145, CUB +125<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 WS -149, CUB +130<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 8.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 8.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 CUB- Carlos Zambrano; WS- Gavin Floyd<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Last game that Zambrano pitched, I wrote about how he had to back up his words, after calling his teammates both “embarrassing” and “like a Triple-A” team.\u00a0 Well, he didn’t back up his words, and if he fails to do so again?\u00a0 Well, he’ll just look EVEN WORSE.\u00a0 Since making the comment his ERA is 8.76.\u00a0 He simply said “I have to keep my head up and keep pitching.”\u00a0 Not exactly inspiring insight from a player that lambasted his teammates the way he did.<\/p>\n

In his last 3 games against the Chicago White Sox, Zambrano is 0-2 with a 7.43 ERA.\u00a0 For a player who was involved in a brawl and had to take anger management courses, things still wound up OK for Zambrano last season, as he closed out the season with 8 consecutive victories and a 1.41 ERA over that span.\u00a0 Zambrano may not have cleared his status as a mental case, but he is the staff ace and has had an ERA under 4 for the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

Paul Konerko of the White Sox is batting .441 with 9 HRs and 19 RBIs in his last 18 games, and he hit another homer on Sunday, in addition to Alex Rios homering, as well.<\/p>\n

The rivalry really can’t be understated when it’s the first thing brought up by White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the games start against the Cubs, it\u2019s a different ball game,\u201d he said. \u201cChicago\u2019s looking for this game and obviously the rivalry is there. You\u2019ve got to step it up a notch because that\u2019s as close as you come to the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cubs still lumber along well below .500 and have dropped their last two.\u00a0 They’ve dropped 9 of 11 away from home and 11 of 15 to the White Sox.<\/p>\n

Gavin Floyd will take the mound for the White Sox.\u00a0 Floyd is 6-6 with a 3.94 ERA, but he has been very impressive over his 11 interleague starts, in which he has compiled a 1.71 ERA.\u00a0 He lost the last matchup at Wrigley against the Cubs, despite only allowing one run, in a 1-0 loss.\u00a0 He logged 21 quality starts in his first 28 games last season but had to shut it down early due to shoulder problems.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The Chicago Cubs are 6-14 SU in their last 20 games and the total has gone OVER in 4 of the Cubs’ last 6 games.\u00a0 The Cubs are 2-9 SU in their last 11 on the road and they are 2-7 SU in their last 9 against the White Sox.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Cubs’ last 5 games against the White SOx and it has gone UNDER in 5 of the last 7 on the road against the White Sox.\u00a0 The Cubs are 1-4 SU in their last 5 games on the road against the White Sox.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the White SOx’ last 5 games and they are 5-2 SU in their last 7 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER In 4 of the last 5 against the Chicago Cubs and the White Sox are 7-2 SU in their last 9 against the Cubs.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of the White SOx’ last 7 games against the Cubs and the White Sox are 4-1 SU in their last 5 at home against the Cubs.<\/p>\n

Zambrano and Floyd are both battle tested veterans, but both are now pitching with ERA’s near 4, which accounts for the total of 8.5 set for tonight’s matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cubs (29-42) AT White Sox (35-38) Jun 20, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 WS -145, CUB +125 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 WS -149, CUB +130 Opening Total: 8.5 Current Total: 8.5 SP:\u00a0 CUB- Carlos Zambrano; WS- Gavin Floyd Last game that Zambrano pitched, I wrote about how he had to back up his words, after […]<\/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":[180,171],"class_list":["post-16173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicago-white-sox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173","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=16173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16175,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173\/revisions\/16175"}],"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=16173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}