Chicago @ San Francisco preview
Oracle Park
Last Meeting ( Aug 10, 2010 ) Chi. Cubs 8, San Francisco 6
In an extremely crowded National League playoff picture, the San Francisco Giants are losing ground.
The Giants will be looking to pull back to the top of the NL leaderboard when they host the Chicago Cubs again on Wednesday.
Knocking on the door of the NL West lead a week ago, San Francisco has dropped five of its last seven games to fall 2 ½ games behind the San Diego Padres in the division.
The slump has completely dissolved the Giants' lead in the wild card race, slipping them into a three-way tie with the NL Central-leading Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals while the Philadelphia Phillies sit one game back.
With the lowly Cubs in town, San Francisco looked like it was back to form with a come-from-behind win in the series opener on Monday, but when ace Tim Lincecum got knocked around on Tuesday the problems returned.
Lincecum allowed six runs in four innings - pushing his ERA to a season-high 3.41 - to put the Giants weak offense into a hole from which it could not recover.
Rookie sensation Buster Posey tried to carry the offense himself, recording three hits and four RBIs while scoring a run, but the rest of the lineup had trouble solving veteran Ryan Dempster in the 8-6 loss.
Barry Zito will get the ball today looking for some rare offensive support. The veteran left-hander is 0-2 over his last four starts despite posting a 2.60 ERA and holding opponents to a .212 batting average during that span.
He lasted seven innings at Atlanta over the weekend, surrendering only four hits and two runs while matching a season high with 10 strikeouts.
The San Francisco offense has averaged four runs over Zito’s last four outings. His last win came on July 16, when the 32-year-old needed to post eight scoreless innings in the 1-0 triumph.
Zito has struggled in the past against the Cubs, going 1-3 with a 4.66 ERA and 13 walks in 29 innings over five starts.
Chicago will counter with left-hander Tom Gorzelanny. Now firmly entrenched in the rotation with Ted Lilly having been sent away at the trading deadline and Carlos Silva on the disabled list, Gorzelanny can spend the rest of the 2010 campaign attempting to convince the Cubs brass that he deserves that same post in 2011.
He’s on the right track with four quality starts in his last five outings despite a loss against Cincinnati last Friday when he allowed three runs on four hits as the Chicago offense managed nothing in a 3-0 shutout.
Gorzelanny has never lost to San Francisco, posting a 3-0 record with a 1.29 ERA in three starts.