THINGS ARE FLOWIN' OVER HERE.
Current Series
1 game series vs Cubs @ Wrigley Field
Colorado Rockies Monday, Jun 27, 2011, 12:20 PM MDT Jhoulys Chacin vs Matt Garza Mostly cloudy,rain. Winds blowing out to left field at 5-15 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 80. Complete Coverage > |
Today's intriguing matchup features two guys who have very similar peripherals, but one has been criminally unlucky (though the other has been somewhat the same in his own right).
Garza comes into the game with a pretty good K/BB ratio (2.73 - a career high), gets a decent percentage of ground balls (though he's no Chacin), and sports a terrific 2.89 xFIP. However, he does allow a fairly high number of line drives, which explains why he allows more than a hit per inning. That, combined with a low strand rate, is why his ERA is above 4.
Chacin, meanwhile, is virtually unhittable, and he has pretty good K/BB numbers as well (although we'd like to see the walks be reduced just a little bit). He doesn't allow line drives, induces ground balls about 61% of the time, and strands 81% of his runners. However, he does suffer from bad luck in one area, in that 15.3% of the fly balls he allows end up sailing over the wall. It's a good thing batters hit the ball in the air off of him just under 27% of the time.
Lineups after the jump...
Rockies:
1. Carlos Gonzalez (L) CF
2. Jonathan Herrera (S) 2B
3. Todd Helton (L) 1B
4. Troy Tulowitzki (R) SS
5. Seth Smith (L) RF
6. Ty Wigginton (R) 3B
7. Charlie Blackmon (L) LF
8. Chris Iannetta (R) C
9. Jhoulys Chacin (R) P
Cubs:
1. Kosuke Fukudome (L) RF
2. Tony Campana (L) CF
3. Starlin Castro (R) SS
4. Aramis Ramirez (R) 3B
5. Carlos Pena (L) 1B
6. Alfonso Soriano (R) LF
7. Blake DeWitt (L) 2B
8. Geovany Soto (R) C
9. Matt Garza (R) P