Game Notes for Thursday, June 21

Iowa Cubs (41-30) vs.

Nashville Sounds (42-30)

Game # 74 Road Game # 38

LH Ryan O'Malley (3-6, 7.03) vs.

LH Adam Pettyjohn (2-1, 3.60)

 

 

 

TONIGHT'S GAME: The Cubs and Sounds meet in the middle game of a short three-game series. The Sounds lead the Cubs by a half game in the standings. The Cubs have won two games in a row and snapped the Sounds six game winning streak last night.  Iowa will send left-hander Ryan O'Malley to the hill tonight against the Sounds lefty Adam Pettyjohn.    

 

TONIGHT'S STARTER:  Ryan O'Malley makes his team-leading 15th start for Iowa. The Cubs are 5-8 in games started by O'Malley and will be 5-9 if they do not come back to win the April 12 suspended game which they trail.  Iowa has supported O'Malley with 5.0 runs per game (65 R/13 G).  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. SOUNDS: The Sounds lead the season series 6-3 (Cubs are 2-2 in Des Moines and 1-4 in Nashville). The Cubs were 7-9 against the Sounds in 2006, and the clubs tied for the division championship. Nashville advanced to the playoffs thanks to the season series win over Iowa. The Cubs were 5-3 in Des Moines and 2-6 in Nashville in 2006.   Since the PCL was formed in 1998, Iowa is 50-71 against the Sounds. 

 

CONGRATULATIONS: Geovany Soto was named to the World All-Star Futures team today by Major League Baseball.  Soto is 12^th in the PCL in average (.324), 10^th in OBP (.397), eighth in SLG (.555) and eighth in OPS (On-Base Percentage Plus Slugging Percentage) at .952.  He's just one home run away from tying his personal season best set in 2004 with 9 home runs in 104 games at West Tennessee.  Soto has 24 extra base hits in 54 games, already just four behind his career high of 28 set last year in 119 games in Iowa and Chicago.  Hee Sop Choi was the last Iowa Cub to play in the All-Star Futures game in 2002 in Milwaukee in the same year he earned the Cubs Minor League Player of the Year honors. 

 

HITTING MACHINE: Buck Coats went 1-3 Wednesday and has hits in ten of his last eleven games, with 21 hits in his last 41 at bats (.512) including three doubles, two home runs, nine runs scored and eight RBI. As the temperatures have warmed, so has Coats, who hit .198 in April (17-86), .347 in May (33-95) and is hitting .488 in June (21-43). Coats is hitting .373 (44-118) in Des Moines and .252 (27-107) on the road.  

 

RONNY ROLLIN':  Ronny Cedeno has reached base safely in 23 of his last 26 games and is batting .398 (39-98) over that span.  He has hits in six of his last seven games and is hitting .516 (16 H/31 AB) in that shorter run. 

 

LASTNIGHT: The three hits Cubs pitching allowed last night was their fewest in any game this season after allowing four hits three times...it was the first time Iowa had shut out an opponent on the road....Iowa won for the first time in Nashville in 2007...with two more scoreless innings the Cubs will tie a season high set April 13 and 14^th vs. Round Rock.   

 

JUST GIVE US SIX: The Cubs are 24-7 when their starter works six or more innings.  Ryan O'Malley has delivered four 6+ inning starts, but the Cubs are just 1-3 in those outings.

 

HOFFY'S HACKS: Micah Hoffpauir is hitting .368/.400/.632 (AVG/OBP/SLG) in June with eight doubles, four home runs and 19 RBI.  He's hit safely in 14 of his last 15 games hitting .406 (26 H/64 AB) and twice in that span has homered in back-to-back games.

 

THIRSTY THURSDAY: The Cubs are 6-2 on Thursdays, going 3-1 both at home and on the road. 

 

NEW FOUND POP: Tony Richie has homered four times in his last 62 AB's. Prior to those four homers, Richie had gone 405 at-bats without a home run (last was June 23, 2005 for class-A Daytona). Richie had hit five homers in 734 at bats at the class-A and double-A levels, but had four homers in his first 29 at bats in triple-A ball.   

 

LONGBALL PRODUCTION: The Cubs have homered 26 times in the last 15 games. The Cubs have hit 74 home runs this season (40 solo) which have accounted for 127 runs (1.8 runs per game on 1.04 homers per game). In 2006, the Cubs hit 120 homers (76 solo) which accounted for 185 runs (1.28 runs per game on .83 home runs per game).

 

UPCOMING PROBABLE STARTERS (times CT)                             

Date	Time	Opponent	Cubs Starter	Opponent Starter
Friday, June 22	7:00 p.m.	at Nashville	LH J.R. Mathes (6-4, 5.33)	RH Tim Dillard (3-4, 4.20)
Saturday, June 23	7:05 p.m.	Albuquerque	LH Les Walrond (7-3, 4.70)	TBA
Sunday, June 24	1:05 p.m.	Albuquerque	LH Neal Cotts (0-1, 7.33)	TBA
Monday, June 25	7:05 p.m.	Albuquerque	RH John Webb (2-4, 5.13)	RH Kenny Baugh