The Curse of Wrigley Field

All it took was one misplay and a miss on a catchable foul fly to bring Carlos Zambrano back from the chilled out stupor he’d been enjoying during his first two starts. Which is a great thing for me because I was beginning to worry about blogging an entire season without a Zambrano meltdown.

I couldn’t watch the game, but apparently Zambrano’s body language indicated he wasn’t too pleased with teammates Darlye Ward and Aramis Ramirez. Ward was just a couple of steps late getting to Pat Burrell’s go-ahead double in the sixth. Ramirez missed a catchable foul fly in the same inning.
Granted, his actions on the field during the Cubs’ 5-3 loss to the Phillies doesn’t constitute a meltdown but it’s early in the year and any sign that Zambrano is beginning to lose it is exciting for me.
But rather than being upset about the play of his teammates, Zambrano probably should’ve worried about his lackluster fastball. Lou Piniella told the press he didn’t think Zambrano was “overpowering tonight” and Zambrano himself admitted there was something wrong with the fastball.
Yeah, I’d say so.
Big ‘Z’ still managed to strike out six batters over his six innings of work, but five runs off nine hits will make it pretty hard for your team to win. Not that the offense provided that much support.
Chicago managed just three runs off six hits and all three runs were solo home runs. Even worse: two of those home runs were part of a back-to-back sequence by Derrick Lee and Ramirez in the first inning.
So wipe that away and you have one run and four hits scattered over eight innings. That’s pretty pathetic.

Even the Tigers scored more runs.