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Cubs eye longest home winning streak in 73 years

Jun 24, 2008 - 12:42 PM Baltimore (38-36) at Chi Cubs (48-28) 8:05 pm EDT

CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Injuries figured to derail the Chicago Cubs' ability to win at home, but nearly halfway through the season, they just keep rolling at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs attempt to win their 15th straight home game on Tuesday when they begin a three-game interleague series against the Baltimore Orioles.

With Alfonso Soriano on the 15-day disabled list since June 12 with a broken left ring finger and ace Carlos Zambrano joining Thursday with a shoulder strain, prospects of Chicago's long home winning streak continuing appeared to be in danger.

Instead, the Cubs posted a three-game series sweep of the crosstown White Sox over the weekend to run their winning streak at Wrigley Field to 14 games - the longest such streak since June 4-July 10, 1936.

A win on Tuesday would give the Cubs their longest home winning streak since winning their final 18 games at Wrigley Field in 1935. The team's home success can be traced to a major league-best offense that is averaging 6.5 runs at home, where the club is 32-8 overall.

To hit that mark, they will need a strong outing from Sean Marshall (0-0, 4.15 ERA), who will be making his first start of the season in place of Zambrano. The lefthander made 13 relief appearances with Chicago before getting optioned to the minors to build up his pitch count to make the conversion back to a starter.

Baltimore will counter with Jeremy Guthrie (3-7, 3.51), who is receiving just 3.2 runs of support, fourth-lowest in baseball. That meager number likely cost him a win on Wednesday when he did not receive a decision despite allowing just one run and three hits with eight strikeouts over eight innings in a 2-1 win over Houston.