Interleague play continues throughout this week in baseball, and on the marquee is an interesting matchup between the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs and the upstart Tampa Bay Rays, who are battling Boston for first place in the AL East.
The Cubs enter this series with the best record in baseball, but that only gives them a 3.5-game lead over the Cardinals in their division. The Rays continue to hold onto second place in the East, 2.5 games behind Boston, while also occupying top spot in the AL Wild Card race.
The series gets started on Tuesday with Tampa Bay ace Scott Kazmir facing Chicago's Ryan Dempster. Sportsbetting.com opened the Rays as -140 favorites on the moneyline, while the total opened at 7.5.
Kazmir had his six-game winning streak snapped in his last start after he gave up three runs on six hits over six 2-3 innings in a loss to the Angels. He also had 10 strikeouts in the game.
Dempster improved to 8-2 on the season and lowered his ERA to 2.81 in his last start after tossing a complete-game four hitter against Atlanta. Dempster allowed only two runs while racking up 11 strikeouts in the win.
In Game 2 of the series on Wednesday, Andy Sonnanstine starts for Tampa Bay and Carlos Zambrano gets the call for Chicago. Sonnanstine recorded his first win since May 16 in his last start after holding Florida to three runs on six hits in five 1-3 innings.
Zambrano settled for a no-decision in his last start after allowing two runs in seven strong innings versus Atlanta.
Wrapping up the series on Thursday will be James Shields for Tampa Bay and Sean Gallagher for Chicago. Shields was battered for six runs on 10 hits in eight innings in his last start, dropping him to 0-3 in his last six outings.
Gallagher is also coming off a loss, in which he surrendered three runs on seven hits in five innings against Toronto.
Both Tampa Bay and Chicago will be somewhat shorthanded in this series. The Rays still have power-hitting first baseman Carlos Pena on the DL, and Carl Crawford will miss Tuesday's game while finishing up a four-game suspension for his part in the recent Rays/Red Sox brawl.
The Cubs are missing Alfonso Soriano, who's sidelined for 4-6 weeks with a broken hand. So far the Cubs have been coping well without him, with a 3-1 record in four games since Soriano went down.
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