Just a few quick notes on the series.

There has been some sentiment that this series is more important to the Cubs than it is to the Brewers.  While I think that there is some truth to that, this is also the most important series for the Brewers until the last Cub series.  This is a two team race and head to head matchups are huge.  I dusted off my binomial calculator (the one I used to check the Brewer's chances of finishing with a certain record or better) and plugged in the current records and winning percentages from BP and the program spit out that the Brewers would win the division 79% of the time.  Pretty close to BP's predicted 76.6% considering they are running a real Monte Carlo and using the real schedule.  I then reran the numbers with all possible outcomes for this series.  Here are the results.

Outcome Brewer's new percent chance
0-3: 69%
1-2: 77%
2-1: 82%
3-0: 86%

The difference between a sweep and being swept is a 17% swing.  That is huge for three games out of  the 84 to go.  That said, as mentioned by others already, just winning one really would be fine as that would drop the crew's chances a mere 2%.

The forecast for this weekend calls for highs in the high 70s or low 80s each day with not a lot of wind.  It looks like Wrigley will play pretty neutral during the series which is too bad for us.  A very hot day with the wind blowing out would certainly help the crew and our long ball hitters (though they do have some power hitters too).

Derek Lee has now played nearly 100 games since coming back from that horrific wrist injury he suffered last year.  During that time he has still hit for average and is taking his walks, but his power seems to have disappeared.  His isolated power had been in the .220s range, peaking at .327 in his remarkable 2005 season.  Since his injury his isoP is down in the .160s.  This could be still lingering issues with the wrist (like Rickie's issues) or due to the fact he is now 31.

As I mentioned last week, Rich Hill and Jason Marquis are 1 and 2 in FIP-ERA, a good measure of luck by pitchers, in the NL.  They have ERAs of 3.14 and 3.46 respectively but have FIPs of 4.50 and 4.67 respectively.  Some of Marquis total can be explain by a large number of uneared runs scoring in his starts.  His RA is 4.42.

Also, both Hill and Marquis have walked a decent amount of batters with BB/9 of 3.0 and 3.5 respectively.  The Cubs pen has been terrible all year and now with Dempster on the DL they are even more vulnerable.  A big key to this series will be patience by the Brewer batters.  Even if they strike out a lot if they can make the Cub starters throw a lot of pitches early it will be worth it.

A few more tidbits about Rich Hill since he is going today.  Hill is a lefty with a great move to first.  Part of the reason it is a great move is because it is a balk.  Hill tends to begin his leg kick then pause at the peak, deceiving the baserunner at first.  This, of course, is a balk, but he has only been called on it once this year.  Something to watch as the Brewers really have been in theft mode recently.

Also, Hill has a problem giving up the long ball.  He has already given up 15 dingers in just 95 innings.  He is a flyball pitcher so this is nothing new to him.  He gave up 16 in 99 innings last year and 20 in 122 innings in the minors in 2005.  He pitched very well against us last time out but maybe we can turn the tables on him this time.