NEWSLETTER
My Kind of Town > I Left My Heart in San Francisco
Married with Children > Full House
The Bean >>> The Golden Gate Bridge
Everyone knows Chicago is better than San Francisco in literally every single way (who wants all those hills?), but the Giants did get the best of the Cubs the last time these two teams met up for a series out west. Naturally, the Cubs actually outscored the Giants in that set (12 runs to 11 over three games), but, alas … timing matters.
Since the end of that series, both teams have gone 11-11, which, for the roughly .500 Giants is fine. But for the Cubs ….
We’re Going Streaking
The Chicago Cubs (66-58)Â just won their first road series since May and first road series against an NL Central team all-season long. They’re a half-game out of first place in the NL Central with 38 games to go.
The San Francisco Giants (63-62)Â looked like they were going to make some noise, when they went 17-4 from June 30th to the end of the Cubs series, but as I mentioned, they’ve been just .500 over their last 22 games, which has kept them behind 5 other teams (including the Cubs, at the moment) in the Wild Card race.
Game Times and Broadcasts Info
Pitching Matchups
Game 1: Tyler Beede (R) v. Cole Hamels (L)
Game 2:Â Dereck Rodriguez (R) v. Yu Darvish (R)
Game 3: Jeff Samardzija (R) v. Kyle Hendricks (R)
Chicago Cubs
Unavailable: Steve Cishek, Willson Contreras, Daniel Descalso, Xavier Cedeno, Brandon Morrow, Allen Webster, Ben Zobrist
San Francisco Giants
Unavailable: Shaun Anderson, Pablo Sandoval, Steven Duggar, Johnny Cueto
Keep An Eye Out For …
Cubs Pitcher: Craig Kimbrel is the guy I’ll have my eye on most this series, not necessarily because he’ll impact these three games the most, but rather because his presence the rest of the way can be a huge swing factor. I really hope he looks like his usual self sooner than later.
Cubs Player:Â After a pretty significant power drought, Anthony Rizzo has two homers in his last four games, and is otherwise slashing .313/.424/.487 (141 wRC+) since the All-Star break. If that power is really coming back, watch out, because he’s already locked in at the plate (11.5% walk rate, 14.4% strikeout rate).
Giants Pitcher: Jeff Samardzija is having his best season by ERA (3.54) since leaving the Cubs back in 2014, and actually has a 2.09 ERA over his last 9 starts, with 47 strikeouts to just 12 walks in 56.0 IP. With that said, his 3.91 FIP during that stretch and 4.41 FIP for the season both suggest the underlying numbers aren’t nearly as strong as the results.
Giants Player:Â After spending a couple seasons below average, Evan Longoria finally has his wRC+ back to league average in 2019. He also happens to be working on a seven-game hitting streak, with 12 hits overall. Worse than that: He’s slashing .350/.376/.700 since July 1st (85 PAs), with 8 homers and 4 doubles. He’s hot. I’d be careful with him, if I were a Cubs pitcher.
