In spite of yesterday’s mail it in performance, the Cubs start another 6 game road trip having won 4 of 5 games. I’m feeling alright about the way the team is playing and the lineup is starting to get healthy. Even though ace Carlos Zambrano is on the DL with hamstring issues, the Cubs should feel relatively confident as they head to Houston and Milwaukee.

The Cubs opened the season taking 2 of 3 from the Astros in Houston, and you can take a look at my series preview for that first matchup to see full details of what the Astros lineup is all about. This visit to Houston is a short one, as the Cubs play their second straight 2 game series.

Before I get to the pitching matchups, I owe you some highlights on what’s different about this club since we last saw them. First of all, closer/resident nut job Jose Valverde is about mid-way through 15 day DL stint, so the Cubs will see former running mate LaTroy Hawkins if the Astros have a lead late, which I don’t mind at all.

At the plate, the Astros are performing about as you would expect them to. Carlos Lee is on a 120 RBI pace with an average close to .300, Hunter Pence has been a solid contributor, and Lance Berkman is leading the club with 6 HR’s. However, in an interesting storyline, Berkman is below the Mendoza line a month into the year, batting a paltry .189 while killing my fantasy team. This is a guy who is a lifetime .300 hitter who has a reputation for scary hot streaks…let’s just hope he doesn’t start one today and tomorrow.

Here are the pitching matchups:

Game 1: Rich Harden (2-1 5.11 ERA) vs. Mike Hampton (1-2 4.88 ERA) 8:05 eastern CSN

Rich Harden has been really solid in 3-of-his-5 starts and really bad in the other two. In the good three, he’s 2-0 with a 2.50 ERA, 27 K’s, and six walks in 18 innings. In the bad two, he’s 0-1 with a 12.15 ERA, 10 K’s, and eight walks in 6.2 innings. It’s going to be evident pretty quickly which Rich Harden shows up and, frankly, the lineup he’s facing doesn’t have much to do with how he pitches. If he’s got it going, there just are not many hitters out there that can put together good AB’s against him.

Mike Hampton will be making his first start against the Cubs since 2004 (wow). His track record against the Cubbies, though dated, is solid (9-4 2.98 ERA over 23 games (19 starts)). Hampton has been decent this season but not spectacular. He’s not gone longer than 6.1 innings all year, so with Harden and Hampton expect the bullpens to have a significant say in how this game plays out.

Game 2: Ted Lilly (3-2 3.13 ERA) vs. Russ Ortiz (2-0 5.21 ERA) 8:05 eastern CSN

Tedford has been tremendous at home thus far in 2009, but not so good away from Wrigley. He’s lasted 5 innings in both road starts, giving up 5 earned runs in each. One of those starts was in Houston, in which he gave up four dingers but managed to eke out a win. Lilly is going to have to improve on this form to get the Cubs a ‘W’ again.

Russ Ortiz has bounced between bullpen and starting rotation so far this year, making three appearances in each role. Ortiz never seemed any good to me when he was putting together seven straight double digit win seasons in San Francisco and Atlanta (he had a 21 win season and an 18 win season) and he seems worse now. He has walked 17 in 19 innings so far this year, which is a kiss of death against these Cubs.

He made a bullpen appearance during Ted Lilly’s start against the Astros, giving up three runs in three innings while walking four and striking out six after Brian Moehler melted down. However, don’t expect the struggling Derrek Lee to do much damage against Ortiz: he’s 3-34 lifetime.