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MLB : ATS Matchup
Wednesday 10/7/2015Line$ LineOU LineScore
CHICAGO CUBS  ARRIETA )
 
PITTSBURGH  COLE )
-1.5  +120

+1.5  -140
-125

+115

5.5un
 
4
Final
0

CHICAGO CUBS (97 - 65) at PITTSBURGH (98 - 64)
No Previous GameView Next Game
Wednesday, 10/7/2015 8:05 PM
JAKE ARRIETA (R) vs. GERRIT COLE (R)
National League Wild Card Game
Board OpeningLatest
 LineTotalLineTotal
933CHICAGO CUBS-115Ov 5.5,-110-125Ov 5.5,+100
934PITTSBURGH+105Un 5.5,-110+115Un 5.5,-120
ADVANCED TEAM STATS
CHICAGO CUBS - Current Season Performance
 Team RecordsTeamOpponent
 W-LUnitsO-URunsAvgOBPSLGOPSRunsAvgOBPSLGOPS
All Games97-65+16.972-814.30.2440.3140.3980.7123.80.2330.2860.3720.658
Road Games48-33+13.738-374.50.2500.3150.3990.7143.70.2350.2890.3650.654
vs Right-handed Starters77-51+12.857-644.40.2460.3170.4090.7263.70.2290.2820.3630.645
Past 7 Games7-0+72-44.30.2510.3280.3700.6991.30.1450.1790.2050.384
Grass Games97-65+16.972-814.30.2440.3140.3980.7123.80.2330.2860.3720.658
Night Games59-35+1941-484.40.2510.3200.4080.7283.80.2290.2850.3580.643
Division46-30+10.834-364.30.2560.3270.3990.7263.90.2300.2840.3580.642
CHICAGO CUBS - Team Hitting and Fielding Statistics
Team BattingTeam BattingTeam Fielding
 RunsAVGOBPGABH2B3BHRSLGRBIBBSOSBLOBGIDPERRDPOSB
All Games4.30.2440.31416254911338272301710.3986585671518951165123112120137
Road Games4.50.2500.31581287872016015790.3993462748025260660616855
Righty Starters4.40.2460.31712843571074212261480.409535447117277913999195122
CHICAGO CUBS - Bullpen Pitching Statistics
 ERAWHIPIPRERHHRBBSOW-LSVBSVPct.
All Games3.371.228514.72231934494218351137-26481971.6%
Road Games3.271.258239.310187208139323113-1528975.7%

PITTSBURGH - Current Season Performance
 Team RecordsTeamOpponent
 W-LUnitsO-URunsAvgOBPSLGOPSRunsAvgOBPSLGOPS
All Games98-64+21.575-754.30.2600.3160.3970.7133.70.2480.3040.3610.666
Home Games53-28+14.440-374.20.2590.3170.3950.7123.50.2410.2960.3530.649
vs Right-handed Starters78-48+21.661-544.40.2590.3150.4020.7183.60.2500.3050.3610.667
Past 7 Games3-4-2.53-42.90.2010.2820.3320.6143.90.2390.2940.3830.677
Grass Games98-64+21.575-754.30.2600.3160.3970.7133.70.2480.3040.3610.666
Night Games67-48+7.657-504.30.2600.3180.3930.7123.90.2530.3090.3720.681
Division34-42-16.639-313.90.2420.3030.3770.6804.20.2590.3210.3810.702
PITTSBURGH - Team Hitting and Fielding Statistics
Team BattingTeam BattingTeam Fielding
 RunsAVGOBPGABH2B3BHRSLGRBIBBSOSBLOBGIDPERRDPOSB
All Games4.30.2600.31616256311466294271400.3976624611322971166147121177144
Home Games4.20.2590.31781273870912814720.3953302336204956378579467
Righty Starters4.40.2590.31512643991141237191180.40252536010267789511593143106
PITTSBURGH - Bullpen Pitching Statistics
 ERAWHIPIPRERHHRBBSOW-LSVBSVPct.
All Games2.671.172522.31721554523816046231-16541380.6%
Home Games2.391.0922828175231217725123-728877.8%
SCHEDULE AND RESULTS
CHICAGO CUBS - Schedule
 Team StatsOpp Stats
DateTeam StarterOpponentOpp StarterScoreW/LLineTot.O/UHLOBEHLOBE
9/23/2015HENDRICKS(R)MILWAUKEEDAVIES(R)1-4L-2258 unU430660
9/25/2015LESTER(L)PITTSBURGHCOLE(R)2-3L-1156.5 unU770740
9/26/2015HAMMEL(R)PITTSBURGHLIRIANO(L)0-4L+1007.5 unU4711090
9/27/2015ARRIETA(R)PITTSBURGHBURNETT(R)4-0W-1757 ovU980120
9/28/2015HENDRICKS(R)KANSAS CITYVENTURA(R)1-0W+1058 unU430450
9/29/2015HAREN(R)@ CINCINNATISMITH(R)4-1W-1358.5 ovU8132332
9/30/2015LESTER(L)@ CINCINNATIDESCLAFANI(R)10-3W-1557 ovO1690420
10/1/2015HAMMEL(R)@ CINCINNATILAMB(L)5-3W-1157.5 unO8521290
10/2/2015ARRIETA(R)@ MILWAUKEEPENA(R)6-1W-2357 ovP1082452
10/3/2015HENDRICKS(R)@ MILWAUKEEWAGNER(R)1-0W-1908 evU8120222
10/4/2015HAREN(R)@ MILWAUKEELOPEZ(R)3-1W-1308 ovU770330
10/7/2015ARRIETA(R)@ PITTSBURGHCOLE(R) 

PITTSBURGH - Schedule
 Team StatsOpp Stats
DateTeam StarterOpponentOpp StarterScoreW/LLineTot.O/UHLOBEHLOBE
9/23/2015MORTON(R)@ COLORADOBERGMAN(R)13-7W-13511 evO191201260
9/24/2015LOCKE(L)@ COLORADOBETTIS(R)5-4W-13011 unU1282980
9/25/2015COLE(R)@ CHICAGO CUBSLESTER(L)3-2W1056.5 unU740770
9/26/2015LIRIANO(L)@ CHICAGO CUBSHAMMEL(R)4-0W-1107.5 unU1090471
9/27/2015BURNETT(R)@ CHICAGO CUBSARRIETA(R)0-4L1657 ovU120980
9/28/2015HAPP(L)ST LOUISLYNN(R)0-3L-1407 ovU6161621
9/30/2015COLE(R)ST LOUISWACHA(R)8-2W-1556.5 unO960851
9/30/2015MORTON(R)ST LOUISLYONS(L)1-11L-1257.5 unO6401280
10/2/2015LIRIANO(L)CINCINNATISAMPSON(R)6-4W-2407 unO77211111
10/3/2015BURNETT(R)CINCINNATIFINNEGAN(L)1-3L-1857.5 unU461650
10/4/2015HAPP(L)CINCINNATISMITH(R)4-0W-2007.5 unU1390670
10/7/2015COLE(R)CHICAGO CUBSARRIETA(R) 
KEY GAME INFORMATION
CHICAGO CUBS: CHICAGO (AP) - Standing in the shade on a beautiful afternoon in Arizona, Jon Lester embraced the question that hovers over the Chicago Cubs these days.
When it comes to all those highly touted prospects, Lester said the time is now.
''When I played in Boston, we didn't have time to grow up,'' the left-hander explained. ''You just had to show up and play, and each year you're expected to win, so that's how I feel. Every year they should come in and expect to be not only division winners, but World Series champions. If you don't have that mindset, then I think you're playing for the wrong reasons.''
Heady stuff for a franchise known mostly for futility, but the Cubs think it's a new era after five consecutive losing seasons.
The shift in thinking for president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and the rest of the front office was evident during an aggressive offseason that included the addition of Joe Maddon after the veteran manager opted out of his contract with Tampa Bay, and a $155 million, six-year contract to add Lester.
The hiring of Maddon meant dumping Rick Renteria after just one year, and Lester's deal is a significant investment for a pitcher who turned 31 in January. But looking at their good young core and rich minor league system, the Cubs felt it was time to act.
''There's a lot of talent here. Now it's about executing,'' Lester said. ''It's going out and playing good baseball for six months. It's hard to do. But that's why we're here. We're going to figure it out as we go.''
The Cubs, who also acquired center fielder Dexter Fowler and catcher Miguel Montero in trades, should be much improved after their 73-89 finish in 2014. But going from last place to the playoffs could depend more on the development of Chicago's top prospects than its newest players.
Jorge Soler takes over in right field after making his major league debut in August and drawing raves for his approach at the plate in the season's final month. Javier Baez, Arismendy Alcantara and Kris Bryant - all 20-something position players with considerable potential - also are key to the Cubs' chance for a breakthrough.
''You don't really read enough about their personalities and their makeup. That to me makes them real prospects,'' Maddon said. ''There's a lot of guys who throw 95 mph and hit balls out of sight. But with the makeup, personality and character ... that's what really turns me on to this group.''
Here are a few more things to watch with the Cubs:
UNDER THE RADAR: Jake Arrieta was a pleasant surprise, finishing with a 10-5 record and a sparkling 2.53 ERA in 25 starts last year. He struck out 167 in 156 2-3 innings and allowed just five homers.
Arrieta, 29, began last season on the disabled list with right shoulder tightness but looked healthy this spring and could team with Lester to give Chicago a potent top of the rotation.
''There's always room to improve. There's always things to get better at,'' Arrieta said. ''There's a right way to go about doing that, and I think that there's some things that I can clean up and kind of use in regard to what I did last season to make it even better.''
AT THE PLATE: The Cubs struck out a major league-high 1,477 times last season, and their .300 on-base percentage was 28th among 30 teams. They had six players with at least 100 strikeouts.
The addition of Fowler, who had a .375 on-base percentage last season with Houston, should help the top of the order, and the pressure is on new hitting coach John Mallee to help Baez and the other young hitters make more consistent contact.
IN THE DUGOUT: Maddon is one of the game's most creative managers, and the move to the NL and one of the game's most quirky ballparks in Wrigley Field could lead to all sorts of different lineups. He could put the pitcher in the eighth slot in the lineup in some situations. Pretty much everything is on the table when it comes to Maddon.
IN THE FIELD: The majors' second-oldest ballpark is undergoing a major renovation that could affect its notoriously fickle wind, which can turn innocent fly balls into homers and long drives into outs. A massive new videoboard is expected to be in place by opening day, but the bleachers will be under construction for the first part of the season. How the work on the ballpark affects the the field remains to be seen.
PITTSBURGH: PITTSBURGH (AP) - The scenario was familiar. The destination not so much.
A veteran player with not much time left leaving millions of dollars on the table for one last run to glory. Only A.J. Burnett didn't walk away from his $12.75 million player option with the Philadelphia Phillies for Los Angeles, Washington or St. Louis.
Nope, the 38-year-old well-traveled (and well tattooed) pitcher practically sprinted to Pittsburgh. His arrival in 2012 marked a sea change in the once-floundering organization's direction. His return three years later signals - he hopes - the end of the team's slow but steady slog from downtrodden afterthought to world champion. And he's not kidding.
''I want to win a ring and I want to win a ring in Pittsburgh,'' Burnett said.
The Pirates are as close to being in the conversation as they've been in nearly a quarter century. And they've opened up their wallets, at least a little, to get there. Pittsburgh made Francisco Liriano the highest-paid free agent in team history when they signed lefthander to a three-year, $39-million deal in the offseason to continue the career resurgence that began when they took a two-year flier on him in 2013. And while Burnett took a cut, he isn't exactly going broke. He'll make $8 million to work as the third man in the rotation behind Liriano and Gerrit Cole.
Pittsburgh even spent $5 million for the rights to sign Korean infielder Jung-Ho Kang, who hit 40 home runs on the other side of the world last year and gives the Pirates an intriguing if unproven option should shortstop Jordy Mercer falter or second baseman Neil Walker's back flare up.
General manager Neal Huntington remains adamant his team's budget will never compare to those of clubs in larger markets but allows there is ''more margin for error'' than in years' past.
''We've built a deeper club because of the money allocated to us,'' he said. ''But we need to continue to grow and mature. We want to put ourselves in a position to win the World Series.''
There are worse places to start than in Pittsburgh, which backed up its breakthrough year in 2013 with a second straight postseason berth in 2014. The playoff run ended abruptly against Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants in the NL wild card game. Yet the point had been made. The Pirates aren't going anywhere.
''It would've been easy to say 2013 was a fluke and we just got lucky,'' centerfielder Andrew McCutchen said. ''But we showed up in `14 and were able to do the same thing. We know we're for real. And other teams know they just can't come in (thinking), `All right, we're going to beat the Pirates.' We're not that team anymore.''
They're also not where they want to be, at least not yet. A National League Central title would avoid the fickleness of a one-game scenario. Pittsburgh believes it's built to withstand the rigors of October.
Here are the keys to getting there:
---
THE OTHER FRANCISCO
The Pirates' budget might be growing, but they still couldn't afford to keep catcher Russell Martin, who parlayed his tremendous 2014 into a $82 million deal with Toronto. Pittsburgh prepared for Martin's departure by trading for longtime Yankees' backup catcher Francisco Cervelli. When healthy Cervelli is an adequate defensive replacement with a decent if not powerful bat. If he can handle the pitching staff and control the basepaths, any offense he provides would be a plus.
---
SPEED TO BURN
Perennial MVP candidate McCutchen anchors one of baseball's most athletic outfields. Starling Marte surged toward the end of a bumpy 2014 and Gregory Polanco is a raw but talented work in progress. Pittsburgh felt confident enough in Polanco's progress to trade Travis Snider to Baltimore.
---
PEDRO'S PROGRESS
Pedro Alvarez moves across the infield to first base in hopes of salvaging his career after developing a serious case of the yips at third. If his can reclaim the groove that helped him mash 36 homers in 2013, the Pirates can live with whatever growing pains may come with the switch.
---
KANG SHOW
Kang (pronounced ''Gahng'') doesn't lack for confidence. He told reporters in Korea he believes he can supplant Mercer at shortstop. It may take longer than he thought after a sluggish spring training.
---
THE VANIMAL
Vance Worley, like Liriano, Burnett and the since departed Edinson Volquez, thrived under pitching coach Ray Searage's mentoring last spring. He was arguably Pittsburgh's best starter down the stretch and a strong spring gives him a leg up in the battle Jeff Locke for the fifth starter spot.
PREVIEW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PA SPORTSTICKER NL PREVIEW (CHICAGO CUBS-PITTSBURGH) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Updates. With AP Photos.)

*Cubs-Pirates Preview* ======================

By WILL GRAVES AP Sports Writer

Chicago (97-65) at Pittsburgh (98-64), 8:08 p.m. EDT

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The hot, young talent. The emerging ace with the electric stuff. The relentlessly upbeat manager. The giddy relief that comes with washing away years of futility.

Yeah, Andrew McCutchen has seen this script before.

Two years ago, it was star center fielder and the rest of the Pittsburgh Pirates who found themselves as baseball's new darlings when they crashed the playoffs for the first time in two decades.

Now it's the Chicago Cubs, whose rebuilding project hit warp speed somewhere between Joe Maddon's hire last winter and rookie slugger Kris Bryant's arrival in April.

"They've opened a lot of eyes," McCutchen said. "We were the hype in 2013. Look at what we did. Everybody was on us ... now it's `Let's talk about the Cubs."'

The Pirates can change the subject quickly Wednesday night in the NL wild-card game. The winner gets the St. Louis Cardinals in the Division Series starting Friday.

The clubs that combined for 195 wins both believe they can make a run provided they can survive baseball's version of a high-wire coin flip.

Heady territory for two franchises that have spent most of this millennium taking turns at the bottom of the NL Central.

Those days have long since passed in Pittsburgh, making its third straight playoff appearance. The Cubs hope to say the same thing in Chicago regardless of a history filled with curses - from billy goats to black cats to Steve Bartman - and a World Series drought at 107 years and counting.

The weight of failure, however, hardly appears to be wearing on a team so loose Cy Young candidate Jake Arrieta took to Twitter to tweak the Pirates' fan base after a parody account warned him of what was coming at what is sure to be a rowdy PNC Park.

Arrieta tweeted back "whatever helps keep your hope alive, just know it doesn't matter." Don't get the well-bearded 29-year-old who led the majors with 22 wins and posted an 0.75 ERA after the All-Star break - no, that's not a typo - wrong. He wasn't guaranteeing victory so much as trying to savor a moment he believed would come even if others did not.

The tall right-hander who never seemed to fit in early in his career in Baltimore has supplanted Jon Lester as Chicago's No. 1 starter.

When he's on, Arrieta is borderline unhittable. The Pirates managed a lone single off him in a 4-0 Cubs' win on Sept. 27 and Arrieta has allowed four earned runs combined since Aug. 1.

That success has sent his confidence soaring. There isn't any one thing that's changed from those difficult years with the Orioles. He simply matured, tweaking his delivery and his mental approach. It's all about the now. Not the last pitch. Not the next one. This one.

In that sense, Arrieta will face a kindred spirit in Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole.

Unlike Arrieta, a late bloomer, Cole has been groomed for this stage from the day the Pirates took him with the first overall pick in the 2011 draft. He hasn't missed a beat any step of the way and made the All-Star team for the first time this summer while becoming the first Pittsburgh pitcher to reach 19 victories since 1991.

"He respects everything about the game but he fears absolutely nothing," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. "That's a wonderful place to be."

A destination that took some work for Cole to arrive at. The fire that so visibly fuels him - few pitcher in baseball take their jobs so personally - would sometimes singe Cole during his first two years in the league. Not anymore.

Catchers Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart have learned to quickly decipher when Cole is in need of a reset. At that moment they leap out of their crouch to give the 25-year-old a pep talk.

Such visits are increasingly rare, a testament to Cole's consistency and the way he's attacked perhaps his biggest weakness.

"When something would go wrong, he would sometimes channel that into a negative," Stewart said. "He's taken that energy and that edge and tried to turn it into a positive."

Any missteps will be magnified against Arrieta, whose historic second half propelled the Cubs to 97 victories, a number Maddon admitted is "pretty extravagant."

All it did was earn Chicago a chance at one more.

At some point late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning the team with one of the three best records in the majors will see its season end. Maybe it will be the group whose future is brightening by the day. Maybe it'll be the group who has shed the upstart label for something more permanent.

Whether it's fair or not, remains a tossup. Maddon would prefer a best-of-three for this round. Hurdle is OK with the current format, perhaps because he's gotten so used to it - the Pirates lost this game last year, at home, to the eventual champion San Francisco Giants.

Both the Pirates and Cubs spent most of the summer stalking but never quite catching the Cardinals. A win provides a second chance.

"There's a lot of luck involved," Cole said. "But there's a lot of little details that matter. And the team that takes care of those the best comes out on top usually."


Last Updated: 3/29/2024 7:09:15 AM EST.


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