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SteemSports Presenter: Nolan Jacobson, @theprophet0, STEEM Witness & PeerPlays Witness.

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Game Information

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Thursday, June 22nd

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4:05 PM Pacific Time

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6:05 PM Central Time

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7:05 PM Eastern Time

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Marlins Park

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Pitcher Showdown

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Jake Arrieta will be the man taking the mound for the Chicago Cubs tonight in Miami. Arrieta was drafted in 2007, more specifically, he was the fifth round pick and he was chosen by the Baltimore Orioles. Arrieta had to wait 3 years before getting called up to the Majors to play for the team that drafted him, the Orioles. His major league debut was on June 10th, 2010, against the Yankees and he ended up getting the W!

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In the 2011-2013 seasons with the Orioles, Arrieta was sent down to the majors on numerous occasions, he spent about half of his time in the Majors and half in the Minors. But that all changed on July 2nd, 2013 when the Orioles made a horrible decision to trade Arrieta to the Chicago Cubs. Guess who they got in return for Arrieta... two bum players in Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger. Well, back to the 2013 season, he played about half of his 2013 season with the Minor league Cubs team and he played the other half with the Cubs, he ended up going 4-2 with Chicago.

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Let's fast forward to the 2015 season where Jake the Snake pitched a complete game victory over the cross-town rivals, the Chicago White Sox in Wrigley! Later on in the 2015 season, Jake became the first player to win 15 games, in the 2015 season, of course. After Arrieta's stellar season came to an end, Arrieta was eventually crowned the NL CY Young Award and he become the first Cubs pitcher to do so since Greg Maddux in 1992.

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In the 2016 season, the Cubs finally clinched their 109 year World Series champions drought. And, Arrieta played a big part of clinching it. He actually won 2 of their 4 games that they played in the World Series! Now, in 2017, Arrieta and all of the other Cubs pitchers have been struggling, very, very bad. Arrieta is currently 6-5 with a whopping 4.64 ERA, but, he would love to turn this around and lead the Cubs to another World Series.

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For the Marlins, Jeff Locke, the veteran who has spent 6/7 MLB career with the Pirates will be taking the mound. Locke is, by no means, a great pitcher, but, on the other hand, he is, by no means, a horrible pitcher. Through 4 games this season, Locke is 0-2 and believe it or not, one of those defeats already came against the Cubbies. He has a 4.58 ERA and only 18 K's. Unfortunately for Locke, I do not expect him to have a good outing tonight against a hot-hitting Chicago Cubs team!

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Match Preview

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The Cubs are 36-35 this season, they are sitting in second place in their division, trailing by 1.5 games. This may not seem like a horrible record, but, let me tell you, last season at this time, the Cubs had 49 wins and only 27 defeats. On the other hand, the Marlins are 32-36, sitting in third place in the NL East. They are in a division with one of the hottest teams in baseball, the Washington Nationals. I would not expect the Marlins to end up winning their division, the best chance they have to make it to the playoffs is by way of the wildcard spot.

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Surpisingly enough, the former World Series champions are not even in the top 10 for any hitting statistic. For the Marlins, they are actually ranked 5th in the league in batting average, but, that is their only top 5 stat for hitting. On an individual note, the Cubs do not have one single batter batting over .300. Statistically speaking, the Cubs best player this year is Anthony Rizzo. Rizzo is batting .264 with 17 HR's and 47 RBI's, he leads his team in HR's hit and RBI's.

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On an individual note for the Miami Marlins, they only have 1 batter batting over .300, but they have numerous batters batting over .280, which is the reason why they are ranked 5th in the league for batting average. That one batter who is batting over .300 is Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna is batting .326 with 19 HR's and 52 RBI's. As of now, it looks as if Ozuna will be representing the Marlins at the 2017 All Star game.

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Overall, this game really could go either way. But, I expect the Cubs batters to demolish Jeff Locke, but hey, who says the Miami Marlins can't demolish Arrieta? So, obviously this game will be decided by the hitting. Now, all we can do is sit back, relax, and watch a good ball game! On a side note, the Cubs are -137 and the O/U is 9.

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