The San Francisco Giants failed to make a late comeback this Wednesday, ultimately falling to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley for the second-straight time, 5-4.
A two-run homer by Mac Williamson drew the Giants to within one run to force extra innings, but their inept offense once again came back to haunt them towards the end. San Francisco is currently 28th in the majors in runs scored (161) and is the second-to-the-worst team with a paltry on-base percentage of .288.
In turn, the Giants will have to lean on Jeff Samardzija (1-5, 4.57 ERA) to try and bail the offense out with another solid outing this Thursday. “The Shark” pitched a gem in his last start against the Cardinals, throwing eight scorless innings for his first win of the year. He also struck out eight St. Louis batters, giving him four-consecutive starts with no less than eight Ks.
However, Samardzija also has three outings this season wherein he surrendered six or more earned runs. Having said that, don’t count on the 32-year-old righty to replicate his superb performance the last time out against the team that drafted him back in 2007 this Thursday afternoon, especially with Chicago’s offense coming to life once more. Which leads us to…
The Chicago Cubs’ bullpen nearly gave up a fantastic start from Kyle Hendricks, but their five runs scored in Wednesday’s contest proved to be enough to hand the Giants their third defeat in four days.
Thanks to two home runs from Anthony Rizzo, who has now gone yard four times over the last four games, the Cubs seem to have found their mojo at the plate once more. They’ve now scored at least four runs in their last four outings – a total of 26 runs that began with a 13-run explosion in a win over division-leading rival Milwaukee on May 21.
Second baseman Ben Zobrist, who took the day off on Wednesday, has also been a big part of Chicago’s resurgent offense. Zobrist will look to extended his seven-game hit streak in the series finale against the Giants. He’s homered twice and drove in four runs during that seven-game stretch.
Set to make only his third start of the season this Thursday is Eddie Butler (1-0, 2.00 ERA). The 26-year-old righty out of Radford University was pulled out early last Friday against the Brewers after giving up two runs and with his pitch count already in the 90s in just three innings. Then again, Butler’s gone 3-0 with a respectable ERA of 3.22 in four-career starts against San Francisco, so he appears in-line for a bounce-back effort.
Best of all, the Cubs have now won six of their last eight games. The reigning World Series champions are also winners of eight of the last 10 meetings against the Giants at home, which includes taking the first two games at Wrigley to eventually eliminate San Francisco in four games during last season’s NLDS.
Writer’s Prediction
The Cubs (-107) deny the Giants a chance to even-up their current four-game series, 6-2.
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