Chicago Cubs at Atlanta Braves, 8 PM ET

The best offensive team in the National League will face one of the best starting rotations around. The Braves would like to win tonight's game and put the pressure on Zambrano in game 2. The Cubs' best chance to win the series is to take the 3 games Wood and Prior are scheduled to start.

Wood is surprisingly tough to run on for a young power pitcher. Lefties reach base a little more often but hit for less power than righties off him. Prediction: Wood is going to throw 130 pitches before he comes out of this game.

notes: OBP is calculated without including sac flies (H+W+HBP)/(AB+W+HBP); player in red indicates the batter is at a platoon disadvantage.

What's not to like about the Braves lineup? That's 5 consecutive batters with +.500 slugging averages. With apologies to Javy Lopez, it's the emergence of Furcal and Giles as a force at the top of the order that has ignited the offence.

Ortiz is the first starting pitcher in the 2003 playoffs that you can get a significant edge against with the platoon advantage. His strikeout rate against lefthanded batters is dangerously low, and his OBP against is not very impressive.

notes: OBP is calculated without including sac flies (H+W+HBP)/(AB+W+HBP); player in red indicates the batter is at a platoon disadvantage.

Much like the Marlins, the Cubs have a dearth of lefthanded batters in the lineup. I'm puzzled as to why Karros is starting instead of Simon (unless there's an injury I haven't heard about); Bako is the 2nd lefty "bat" (I use the term loosely) in the lineup. Ortiz isn't a great pitcher, so it's reasonable to expect the Cubs to score 3 or 4 runs in 7 or 8 innings off him. If Smoltz is up to full speed the Braves will have a slight edge late in the game, though I really like the work Remlinger has been doing in 8th innings this year.