Cubs v. Astros (Game 2)

According to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, this will be the Cubs lineup this evening in Houston:

1. LF Alfonso Soriano, R

2. SS Ryan Theriot, R

3. 1B Derrek Lee, R

4. RF Milton Bradley, S

5. 3B Aramis Ramirez, R

6. CF Reed Johnson, R

7. C Geovany Soto, R

8. 2B Mike Fontenot, L

9. P Ryan "Will Ferrell's understudy" Dempster, R

Thoughts

- As Justin predicted earlier, there are changes with a lefty on the mound in Wandy Rodriguez. I mentioned Rodriguez in my "hinge players" post as an extremely important player for the Astros success. Of all the non-Oswalt pitchers in the Houston rotation, he is the one most capable of putting up a good performance, let's just hope that doesn't happen tonight. 

- I would expect Aramis to build on his home run last night, as he always performs well in Minute Maid Park. He has 16 career home runs there, which is the most in a ballpark he hasn't called home (Wrigley, clearly, and PNC Park are the top two). The Crawford boxes really blend well with Aramis' power stroke, as we saw last night.

- Aramis will need to get some runs in tonight because (again as Justin said earlier) Carlos Lee certainly will not be held down like he was last night. In 90 career games against the Cubs he has hit .313-27-76. Probably most impressive is his .610 slugging percentage against the Cubs. Watch out Ryan Dempster.

Game in 40 minutes. Go Cubs.