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Game Notes for Monday, May 14
05/14/2007 5:22 PM ET
Iowa Cubs

Iowa Cubs (21-16) vs. Sacramento River Cats (23-14)

Game # 39 - Home Game # 19

LH Ryan O'Malley (1-2, 4.67) vs.

LH Colby Lewis (4-1, 2.42)

 

 

 

TONIGHT'S GAME: The Cubs and River Cats meet in game three of their four-game set this evening. The Cubs lead the American North division by three games over Nashville, while the River Cats lead the Pacific South division by 4.5 games over Fresno. The Cubs will send left-hander Ryan O'Malley to the hill, while the River Cats counter with fellow southpaw Colby Lewis, who has the third best ERA among active pitchers in the PCL.   

 

TODAY'S STARTER:  Ryan O'Malley makes his eighth start for Iowa. The Cubs are 2-4 in games started by O'Malley and will be 2-5 if they do not come back to win the April 12 suspended game which they trail.   Iowa has supported O'Malley with just 3.5 runs per game.  O'Malley, who turned 27 on April 9, was 7-7 with a 4.08 ERA in 26 games (19 starts) for Iowa in 2006. He was promoted to Chicago for the first time in his career August 16, 2006 and made his major league debut in Houston that day, shutting out the Astros for eight innings in a 1-0 Cubs win. O'Malley was 1-1 in two starts for Chicago.  

 

CUBS VS. CATS: The season series is tied 1-1. The Cubs are 16-22 all-time against the River Cats since they joined the PCL in 2000. The Cubs are 10-8 in Des Moines but just 6-14 in Sacramento. The River Cats swept the Cubs in the 2004 PCL Championship Series. The Cubs have never lost a home series to Sacramento (1-0-3), but have never won a series in Sacramento (0-3-2).

 

MAKING MAMA PROUD: The Iowa Cubs set season highs in runs (17), hits (18) and margin of victory (11) yesterday, while tying season highs in home runs (3, accomplished four times) and walks (7, three times).  The last time Iowa scored 17 runs was July 25th, 2002.

 

DOING GOOD: One day after raising $7,912 for Derrek Lee's Project 3,000, Iowa raised $2,465 yesterday by auctioning off the special pink Mother's Day bats to support breast cancer research.  That brings the two-day total raised to $10,377 for the two worthy causes. 

 

BIG FLY GUY: Eric Patterson has homered in three straight games.  Michael Restovich went deep in three consecutive games three times last year, while Jesse Hoorelbeke did it once.  The last Cub to go deep in four straight was Keith McDonald on July 24-27, 2003.

 

A WALK IN THE PARK: A day after Cubs pitchers walked a season-high seven batters Saturday, Iowa pitchers issued six more walks Sunday.  However, Iowa's hitters set a season high on Sunday by drawing seven walks of their own. 

 

APRIL VS. MAY: The Cubs hit just .251/317/.374 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 17 homers in April and were 11-13. So far in May, the Cubs are batting .329/.375/.535 with 15 homers and boast a 10-3 record.

 

STREAKERS: Mike Fontenot, who earned PCL player of the week honors last week, has hit in ten straight games (22-44, .500) with five doubles, three triples, two home runs and 14 RBI. He has seven multi-hit games in the last nine contests. In the last week, Fontenot hit .581 with 13 RBI and 12 runs...... Eric Patterson has a seven straight multi-hit games and is hitting .500 (15 H/30 AB) with two doubles, four home runs and eight RBI over that span.  On the morning of May 3rd, he was hitting .240/.293/.333, but a mere ten games later is hitting .339/.389/.517.

 

ON THE OFFENSIVE: The Cubs have scored in the first or second inning in each of the last ten games (9-1 record) and have outscored their opponents 37-11 in the first three frames of the last ten games. The Cubs have pounded out 127 hits in the last ten games (12.7 per game) and have scored 80 runs in the last ten contests (eight per game). The Cubs have outscored the opposition 80-50 in the last ten games.

 

CLOSER BY COMMITTEE: The Cubs have had five different pitchers record saves this year with Clay Rapada posting a team-high four saves. Cory Bailey and Rocky Cherry have three saves each and John Webb and Randy Wells each have one. In his last three games, Bailey has three saves and has not allowed a hit in 2.1 innings.

 

MAY-BE THE BEST: The Cubs are off to a 10-3 start in May. The franchise-best mark in the month of May was in 1973, when the Iowa Oaks (White Sox affiliate) went 20-7.

 

GET COMFORTABLE: The first two games of this series have lasted a combined six hours and 18 minutes.

 

QUALITY START: The Cubs are now 13-3 when their starting pitcher goes six or more innings. The Cubs now have 12 quality starts in 36 games (Ryan O'Malley 3, Les Walrond 3, Carlos Marmol 3, J.R. Mathes 1, Sean Marshall 1 and Randy Wells 1). 

 

 


UPCOMING PROBABLE STARTERS

Date Time Opponent Cubs Starter Opponent Starter
Tuesday, May 15 12:05 p.m. vs. Sacramento LH Les Walrond (4-2, 4.02) LH Dan Meyer (1-0, 1.88)
Thursday, May 17 7:05 p.m. at Oklahoma RH Carlos Marmol (4-1, 3.79) RH Josh Rupe
Friday, May 18 7:05 p.m. at Oklahoma LH Sean Marshall (1-0, 2.16) LH Bruce Chen (1-1, 4.15)
Saturday, May 19 7:05 p.m. at Oklahoma LH J.R. Mathes (4-2, 4.97) LH John Koronka (3-3, 5.40)
Sunday, May 20 7:05 p.m. at Oklahoma LH Ryan O'Malley Ezequiel Astacio

 

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