Jeff Francis Chill

The Cubs offense has been pretty cold, until today. Hopefully the hits will keep coming tomorrow in Tuscon. It's the Rockies, again. Jeff Francis starts against Sean "Bound for Iowa or Baltimore" Marshall.

The Rockies lefty is a Canuck, just like Dempster. At 26, he had a great season in 2007. While winning 17 games, he posted an ERA+ of 114, just below 2006's 118. He's a solid pitcher who did well in the post-season until getting pummeled by Boston.

He's got what looks like two fastballs (4-seam/2-seam) a change, which appears to be his most effective pitch, and a curve ball.

Here are the average pitches from a hand-adjusted k-means clustering



See how many more swings, and whiffs, he gets on #3



Here are his release points




Spin Movement




Plate Location