Pittsburgh Pirates (50-58) at Chicago Cubs (65-44): The Chicago Cubs are officially on fire. What a statement the Cubbies have sent to the Milwaukee Brewers (60-49) this week. With the Brew-crew playing extremely well going into a four game set with Chicago, everything changed when the Cubbies got Alfonso Soriano back. Lou Pinella’s Cubs sweep the 4-game series despite having faced the toughest pitchers in the entire National League. At SBGglobal.com the Chicago Cubs are -240 betting odds favorites against the Pittsburgh Pirates (+200).

Friday’s game 1 matinee between the Pirates and the Cubs has a scheduled start time of 2:20 pm ET (1:20 pm CT), from Wrigley Field.

The Chicago Cubs kick off the month of August by returning home for 9 games, even though the road wasn’t too bad (4-0). During the home stand, they will face Pittsburgh for 3 games, Houston (3), and St. Louis (3).

These are all winnable series for Chicago, so with just 2 months to play in the regular season, this home stand might be costly for the Brewers who start the day 5 games behind in the NL Central.

This afternoon’s pitching match-up features a battle of two RHP: Jeff Karsten vs. Jason Marquis.

The San Diego, California-born Jeff Karsten was one of the players involved in the trade that sent Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte to the New York Yankees. He has been a hot prospect for New York for quite some time now. The 26-year-old Karsten will be making his first MLB start in 2008 against the Cubs this afternoon, so he has no numbers to report.

However, a few years back he was called up by the Yanks, and here are his numbers: 2006 (2-1, 3.80, 8 G, 6 GS, 42.2 IP, 40 H, 20 R, 18 ER, 6 HR, 11 BB, and 15 K), 2007 (1-4, 11.05 ERA, 7 G, 3 GS, 14.2 IP, 27 H, 21 R, 18 ER, 4 HR, 9 BB, and 5 K).

Karsten’s counterpart this afternoon will be the New Yorker, Jason Marquis. Here are Marquis’ numbers thus far in the ’08 campaign: 6-6, 4.69 ERA, 19 GS, 111.1 IP, 117 H, 61 R, 58 ER, 12 HR, 44 BB, and 62 K).

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