The Cubs look to avoid being swept by their cross-town rivals on national television.<\/p>\n
Chicago White Sox at Chicago Cubs<\/strong><\/p>\n The Chicago White Sox have won four straight games and five of their last six as they continue a nine-game, 10-day road trip.\u00a0 It\u2019s only helped to have starting pitchers Jake Peavy, Gavin Floyd and Mark Buehrle scheduled to throw in this series, as the three have combined to go 34-15 with a 3.25 ERA in interleague play.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re getting the good pitching and timely hitting,\u201d White Sox outfielder Juan Pierre said following Saturday\u2019s 2-1 victory.\u00a0 The lineup is filled with hitters that have been Cubs\u2019 killers in the past, including OF Mark Kotsay batting .405 in his last 10 games against the club and OF Alex Rios being a red-hot 11-for-16 with six RBI in his last four.\u00a0 The team continues its winning ways against the National League, currently having a 4-1 record this year (+340), after going 12-6 in 2009.<\/p>\n White Sox SP Gavin Floyd is 2-6 with a 6.18 ERA in 13 starts this season (-780) and will be making his sixth appearance away from U.S. Cellular Field.\u00a0 The right-hander is 5-1 with a 2.13 ERA in eight career interleague starts, making his second career start against the Cubs.\u00a0 He did not factor in the decision in a 6-5 loss at Wrigley Field on June 18, holding the cross-town rivals to just a single run and four hits over seven innings.\u00a0 Floyd is a disappointing 1-4 with a 6.67 ERA in five road starts this year (-310).\u00a0 He will hope to build on his last outing, as he allowed just a single run over six innings of work against the Detroit Tigers.\u00a0 \u201cHe threw the ball great.\u00a0 That\u2019s the Gavin we expected all year,\u201d catcher A.J. Pierzynski said.<\/p>\n The Chicago Cubs are 5-11 in its last 15 contests and now sit a season-low eight games under .500, the first time that has happened since June 2007.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve been .500 four times this year and we haven\u2019t been above .500 at all,\u201d said manager Lou Piniella.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll have to wait and see what happens.\u00a0 We\u2019re trying like heck.\u201d\u00a0 The team will hope to improve upon its 17-26 mark against right-handed starters this season (-1,410), after having its six-game winning streak against southpaws snapped on Saturday.\u00a0 After going 9-1 against the White Sox from 6\/2\/06 – 6\/22\/08, the Cubs are just 2-9 against them in their last 11 meetings.<\/p>\n Cubs SP Ted Lilly is 1-5 with a 3.28 ERA in nine starts this season (-500), despite allowing just 49 hits in 60.1 innings of work.\u00a0 The veteran left-hander is coming off a sharp outing against the Brewers, allowing just a single run and four hits over eight innings, but the Cubs still fell in defeat.\u00a0 \u201cUnfortunately, I\u2019ve done that a couple times and given up a lead,\u201d Lilly said about his last start.\u00a0 He has produced a solid 5-2 record against the White Sox in 10 career starts (+560), but has a 5.94 ERA in the process.\u00a0 Lilly will need to be wary of 1B Paul Konerko, who is 6-for-21 with three home runs against him.\u00a0 The White Sox captain is also riding a seven-game hitting streak that has him batting .480 with a home run and seven RBI.<\/p>\n The linesmaker has created a line that doesn\u2019t make a whole lot of sense, except for the fact that the public will likely have a great interest in playing a home team that\u2019s looking to avoid a sweep.\u00a0 Before diving in and playing the underdog, it\u2019s important to note that the Cubs are 5-0 in Lilly\u2019s last five starts as a home favorite of -110 to -150.\u00a0 The White Sox are also a dismal 1-7 in Floyd\u2019s last eight starts as a road underdog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Cubs look to avoid being swept by their cross-town rivals on national television. Chicago White Sox at Chicago Cubs The Chicago White Sox have won four straight games and five of their last six as they continue a nine-game, 10-day road trip.\u00a0 It\u2019s only helped to have starting pitchers Jake Peavy, Gavin Floyd and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1826,180,171,1573,1561,1824,340,1827,1825,1823],"class_list":["post-4072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-alex-rios","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-espn-sunday-night-baseball","tag-gavin-floyd","tag-juan-pierre","tag-lou-piniella","tag-mark-kotsay","tag-paul-konerko","tag-ted-lilly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4072"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4638,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4072\/revisions\/4638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}