Pitching Matchups; Game of the Day 5/22/11

1:00pm
Portland Sea Dogs (Stolmy Pimentel 0-5, 6.19)
vs. Trenton Thunder (Manny Banuelos 1-0, 2.25)

1:35pm
New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Chad Beck 4-0, 2.56) GAME 1
vs. New Britain Rock Cats (Deolis Guerra 3-4, 9.85)

New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Joel Carreno 2-3, 4.50) GAME 2
vs. New Britain Rock Cats (Steve Hirschfeld 3-0, 1.94)

2:00pm
Pawtucket Red Sox (Tony Pena Jr. 1-2, 4.91)
vs. Toledo Mud Hens (Ramon Garcia 0-1, 11.25)

Game of the Day - Fisher Cats vs. Rock Cats x 2 - Last night's game in New Britain brought yet another postponement on this short season, so today's double header looms large. A sweep would be a huge benefit for both teams, as it would put the Fisher Cats up four games on the Rock Cats, but New Britain can pull back into a first place tie should they capture both games. The pitching matchup in Game 1 is the same as it would have been last night, so please scroll down a bit to check the analysis for that matchup. In Game 2, Joel Carreno gets the ball for New Hampshire and after a rough start to the season, he has been rolling along quite nicely as of late, picking up wins in his last two starts over Portland and Binghamton, allowing only 1 earned run over 13 1/3 innings. Carreno is currently fourth in the EL with 46 strikeouts on the season, but he is also second for most home runs allowed with 8 (first is New Britain's Game 1 starter Deolis Guerra with 9), yet he has not allowed a long ball over his last three outings. The Rock Cats have Steve Hirschfeld on the bump in Game 2. Hirschfeld has been New Britain's best starter so far this year, tossing 41 2/3 innings and accumulating a 1.94 ERA (fourth best in the EL) and a 0.84 WHIP (second in the EL). This will be Hirschfeld's first look at the Fisher Cats hot lineup, but he has held his last four opponents to only 5 runs over 26 2/3 innings and the Rock Cats are hopeful that this will carry over to the second half of the double bill.

Side note prediction (5-10) - My prediction was rained out for the first time this season, but I'm sticking with my "new path" of staying with the same team so long as I am winning with them. I'm looking for the Fisher Cats to sweep the double header in today's prediction. I've tried this on two separate occasions so far and have come up empty, and if I come up empty again today on the DH prediction, then I know there will be plenty more in the future with all the damn rain outs we've had so far. But if I win this one, I'm stopping the DH predictions all-together, they are just plain stupid!

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