Florida Marlins at Chicago Cubs, 8 PM ET (Game 1)

Both teams' offences are righthander-heavy. This is an advantage for the Cubbies, since all their starters will be righties, while lefties are scheduled to start Games 3,4 and 7 (unless McKeon starts Carl Pavano) for Florida.

The only lefthanded hitters we'll see on a regular basis are Kenny Lofton (Cubs), Juan Pierre (Marlins), and the switch hitter Luis Castillo (Marlins). Lefthanded hitting Paul Bako might catch Kerry Wood, and Randall Simon will make a few appearances for the Cubs. The rest of the starting lineups will feature righthanded hitters. It will be a tall order for the Fish to score runs in this series.

The Marlins-Giants series averaged 9 runs a game while the Cubs-Braves series averaged 6.8 runs a game. The Braves hitters are much better than Florida's, and their starting pitchers are a little worse. That's an indication the series will be a low scoring affair.

The team lines are the weighted average by expected number of series starts, assuming a 7-game series. The Cubs have the edge in everything except walks per 9 IP. Keep in mind that Florida plays in a park where homeruns are hard to come by. Assuming both bullpens give up runs at a rate of 4 per 9 innings, the Cubs non-park-adjusted pitching edge is about half a run. That goes up to about 0.7 when parks are considered.

Prior and Wood are slated to pitch games 6 and 7 if necessary, so the Marlins pretty much have to be up 3-2 after 5 games. They need to win both games that Josh Beckett starts (Games 1 and 5) and beat one of Chicago's big two at least once in the first 5 contests. If the Marlins lose game 1, they potentially will face Wood/Prior in 4 of the 6 remaining games and will therefore need to beat them twice at a minimum. That's why this first game is more important to Florida than to Chicago.

notes: BIP rate is batting average on balls in the field of play; W rate is non-intentional walks per opportunity (PA-IW-HBP)

The Marlins starters kept up with the Cubs in strikeouts and walks, but had a higher ERA. They didn't go as deep into games (5.58 IP/start versus 6.93 for the Cubs) as Chicago's starters and therefore relied heavily on their bullpen. That will likely repeat itself in this series.