Everything was looking good for the Cubs headed into the ninth inning this afternoon in the finale of a three game set with the Houston Astros. Dempster had been outstanding going 7 2/3 innings and allowing just one run outdueling Wandy Rodriguez who also pitched very well for Houston. Carlos Marmol, who has been dominant here in the opening weeks of the season, was getting set to take the mound. In addition to this, today was one of those days where the wind was just howling in making it extremely difficult to hit a home run. The Astros needed to find a way to put together a rally against Marmol.
Unfortunately for the Cubs the Astros did find a way to do it tying the game in the ninth before scoring one in the tenth off of Sean Marshall to win the game 3-2. It really is an impressive win by the Astros, finding a way to get it done against three extremely tough pitchers on a great pitcher’s day. This is kind of the way things have been breaking early on this season for the Cubs. They have played in numerous close games and have not been on the winning side very often. One element be it the hitting, the defense, the pitching seem to be off each game. This certainly appears to be a team searching for confidence and an identity. There are a lot of good players on this team, but without chemistry and confidence the results are likely to be similar to those from a year ago.
The Cubs will travel to New York tomorrow to kick off a four game series with the Mets. Here are the probables for each game:
Monday: Randy Wells RHP (1-0, 2.92) vs. Jon Niese LHP (0-1, 6.55)
Tuesday: Carlos Zambrano RHP (1-1, 9.45) vs. Mike Pelfrey RHP (2-0, 1.29)
Wednesday: Carlos Silva RHP (1-0, 0.69) vs. Oliver Perez LHP (0-1, 3.75)
Thursday: Tom Gorzelanny LHP (0-1, 1.93) vs. TBA
A couple of other quick notes, Ted Lilly will make one more rehab start on Monday before making his season debut on Saturday against Milwaukee. Piniella will have some decisions to make regarding which starter loses his spot to Lilly. It likely comes down to Carlos Silva and Tom Gorzelanny, both of which have looked impressive early on. Also, Soriano is officially retiring that ridiculous hop that he used to do after catching the third out of an inning. That maneuver caused him to drop a fly ball on Saturday, something that major league outfielders simply should not do. There is no reason to take an easy play and make it challenging because a player insists on jumping as he catches the ball. At least we have seen the last of it (at least I hope so.)
