Mizzou

In his career, Duke's BAA in day games is .322. In five day starts this year, his ERA is a solid 8.64 and opponents are hitting just under .400 against him. Opponents are hitting .229 off of Rich Hill in day games in his career. This year, in 14 day game starts, his ERA is 4.19 with a BAA of .255. If I were a betting man, I'd clearly wager on the Cubs in this one. Milwaukee is facing Smoltz, so realistically we could (and should) be 2.5 games up at the end of the day, thus reducing the magic number to 6.

Do you have any backup plans for tickets if you don't end up getting them in the lottery Sunday morning? I'm not ready to let not getting tickets that day ruin my plans, but at the same time, I'm not looking to pay obscene prices to be at these games, since I'll already be in need of a plane ticket for the weekend. I'm just worried that they'll end up being impossible to get for any less than 4x face value if the VWR doesn't work out. The only real backup plan at this point is craigslist/ebay/whatever else. My dad has never been to a Cubs game at Wrigley, and if I'm lucky enough to get tickets to an NLDS game, I'm going to fly him and myself up there as an early Christmas present to him. So I'm hoping that I'm successful come Sunday morning, and if not I hope that I can find something that isn't too ridiculous on the secondary market.

No. I am not rooting for any particular scenario. And if the Cubs do come here, the only way I go to a game is if my buddy serves up his season tickets behind the Padres dugout. The smoking law really turned me off from going to games. Special seats is about the only thing that would stop me from watching the game in the comfort of my own home. And Petco couldn't touch Wrigley with a 10 foot pole. It's just another boring ballpark built in the '00's and a pain in the butt to get to. If it was at Jack Murphy, I'd be all over it. Well, I want to see the Cubs in the playoffs and the Dodgers are tanking and I'm not likely to get tickets and a plane flight to Wrigely, so the Padres are my chance. I take the trolley in to Petco so I never had a problem getting there. If Columbus Day weekend games were going to be road games for the Cubs, then I'd be rooting hard for the Dodgers, but since those will most likely be home games (assuming the Mets and Phillies don't both collapse), I'm going to try and score tickets at Wrigley and catch a flight. Oh wow, I completely ignored the fact that that weekend was Columbus Day weekend. Columbus Day is a holiday where I work, and I took that previous Friday off already anyways. This is shaping up to be quite the ideal setup for me as far as road tripping up to Chicago to watch us win the NLDS series.

I'd bet money that he winds up playing for the Yankees next year.

I've always been a big Mark Prior fan, but I couldn't care less about him at this point in the season.

Tied for now

The pen's not up? Dude is at 111 pitches!

Runners at first at second, two down in the top of the 8th for Milwaukee. Corey Hart coming up.

We didn't really give up anything for him though. He took a chance, and it didn't work out. Big deal. You guys think he'll be on the playoff roster?

What a bitter d-bag. Every team gets lucky and gets bounces. It's the teams that capitalizes on them that wins.

Aramis's voice is much higher than you'd think it would be. It always cracks me up for some reason.

Agreed. There's no reason to use someone who we might need tomorrow or Sunday with a 6 run lead.

With Hudson pitching tonight for the Braves, we could easily be 2.5 games up at the end of the night!

I was really looking forward to hearing Harry sing the stretch today, but Dutchie ruined it for me.

Hahaha, that's hilarious

Shut up Dutchie!

Ugh, Pie

Come on Derrek.

Worthless at bat.

I think it was more of not wanting to use up a good option this early in the game.

Cedeno, oh boy.

How in the hell does Soto not score there? Wow, that's pathetic.

Very, very far. One of the farthest I've ever seen at Wrigley Field. He murdered that ball.

They boo Zambrano, but not Marquis after this God awful start? Okay

Jesus Christ Lou, freaking get him out of there you idiot.