Roster Refreshed for Game 3 in Arizona

Updated

Alfonso Soriano and Scott Eyre have been activated from the DL and both will be available tonight, according to cubs.com. Kevin Hart and Micah Hoffpauir return to Iowa.

Getting Soriano back should be a psychological lift, but that could be a bursting bubble if the lead-off man struggles off the bat.

The Cubs now have three lefties in the bullpen, since I don't know how long. Anyone know the last time we had three active southpaws out there in the 'pen?

Tonight's match-up is a battle of lefties, with Ted Lilly facing off against Doug Davis. Ted threw more fastballs and sliders last time out, compared to recent starts. Here's a look back at Ted's pitch selections since last year.


click to enlarge

Doug Davis has had a lot of success against the Cubs. If you read previous posts about Doug Davis, you'll see a bit on that, and his heavily used curveball.

Update Here are fresh numbers for Doug Davis, taken from 2008 starts (sans Cincy and Philly, which may both be correct now).

When I look at these pictures, I see him as a guy with two planes, two pitches on each - the fastball (four-seam) and change-up (two-seam?) and the cutter and the curve. Notice the release points and spin movement, but mostly the flight paths - the launch angles, when the pitches within each pair diverge, and, in the tables, how slow he throws.

cfx	L	R	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	deg	rpm	B:CS	corner%	Sw%	Whiff%	SwOZ%	TaIZ%	HR%	NKS	G:AO
CH	16	70	78.3	5.9	10.1	150	1,316	16.0	9.30	39.53	20.59	25.81	18.75	0.0	0.286	2.3
CU	70	128	69.7	-4.8	-7.9	150	917	1.7	9.60	40.40	27.50	25.69	34.26	0.5	0.342	1.9
FA	86	197	85.2	2.5	11.5	168	1,450	2.1	11.66	30.74	12.64	18.34	39.46	0.4	0.465	1.1
FC	116	364	82.9	-2.6	6.2	201	832	2.1	9.38	50.42	19.01	33.33	23.75	0.6	0.564	1.3
	288	759	80.6	-0.9	5.3	178	1,055	2.2	10.03	42.31	19.41	26.99	29.74	0.5	0.476	1.4

		#	FA	FC	CH	CU
L	first	78	46.2	33.3	2.6	17.9
L	ahead	79	25.3	44.3	6.3	24.1
L	behind	62	25.8	48.4	8.1	17.7
L	even	62	22.6	32.3	6.5	38.7
L	full	7	0.0	71.4	0.0	28.6

		#	FA	FC	CH	CU
R	first	194	35.1	38.7	7.7	18.6
R	ahead	177	20.3	49.2	5.6	24.9
R	behind	222	32.9	48.6	12.6	5.9
R	even	127	13.4	51.2	12.6	22.8
R	full	39	7.7	74.4	2.6	15.4

Look, if he's not locating his pitches, it is not good enough stuff to avoid being crushed. But, you can see why this guy gets away with it a lot - Davis gets a lot of ground-outs, and is constantly working off-speed. Tough to time that if it isn't fat.