Travis Wood will try to continue his ridiculously hot stretch (which can be hard to do when you’re facing a team for the second time in two weeks), and he’ll try to beat Johan Santana once again.
Starlin Castro gets his first game off of the year a day after all the beat writers got quotes from Dale Sveum about how Castro is going to keep starting even as his bat slumps because of his good defense. I’m sure they’re thrilled about that.
Darwin Barney fills in at shortstop, which could threaten his errorless-game streak a bit, since he hasn’t played there in quite some time. He’s a natural shortstop, though, so maybe he’ll give other teams something to think about this month.
Game Info
Chicago Cubs (31-51) at New York Mets (45-38), 6:10pm CT on CSN.
Game Thread and Series Preview
The Game Thread lives here. You should participate in the madness. And, of course, for those who aren’t into message board-style game threads, please feel free to use the comments on this post for your in-game commentary/outbursts.
The Series Preview for this series lives here.
Starting Pitchers
Travis Wood (3-3, 3.05 ERA, 1.089 WHIP)
versus
Johan Santana (6-4, 2.76 ERA, 1.092 WHIP)
New York Mets Lineup
1. Ruben Tejada, SS
2. Ronny Cedeno, 2B
3. David Wright, 3B
4. Scott Hairston, LF
5. Lucas Duda, RF
6. Justin Turner, 1B
7. Mike Nickeas, C
8. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, CF
9. Johan Santana, P
Chicago Cubs Lineup
1. Reed Johnson, RF
2. Darwin Barney, SS
3. Anthony Rizzo, 1B
4. Alfonso Soriano, LF
5. Jeff Baker, 2B
6. Geovany Soto, C
7. Joe Mather, CF
8. Luis Valbuena, 3B
9. Travis Wood, P