Game 1 Starters

Jack McKeon just announced on local television that Josh Beckett will start game one for the Marlins against the Cubs on Tuesday. I would expect that the Fish will use the same rotation they did against the Giants - Beckett, Penny, Redman, and Willis (with Pavano coming out of the pen).

I'm not sure who the Cubs will start in Game 1, but I would assume that Prior or Clement will start Game One and that the Cubs will try to get Wood back into the mix as soon as possible.

The Marlins have announced that games 3 and 4 (Friday and Saturday) are nearly sold out (sounds like more than 60,000 seats already. Tickets for game 5 are moving slightly slower. Capacity for each game will be slightly over 65,000.

In the two home games against the Giants, the Marlins drew over 120,000 "fans" - during the regular season, it took the Marlins their first 8 home games to draw that many people. Admittedly, some of these outfield seats that they're selling for the playoffs are not very attractive for a regular season baseball game (heck, they're not even good seats for Dolphin games), but it's good to see people in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale interested in baseball again. Hopefully the team will be able to hold onto their core during the offseason, but it may cost $30 million more to keep the same team together next year - and that doesn't even account for taking care of Willis and Cabrera with Pujols style contracts, which probably would be appropriate if the team was in better financial condition.