What a debut it was Friday night for Starlin Castro, the 19-year-old phenom from the Dominican Republic. The rookie shortstop sparked most of the team’s scoring with a major league debut record six RBI’s. That many RBI’s is incredible for any player to post, but it is even more impressive coming from a rookie that found out he had been called up to the big leagues just 12 hours before the start of the game.
A lot is expected of Castro however, as he was hitting a ridiculous .376 at Double-A Tennessee and had long been billed as the organization’s top prospect. MLB.com also had Castro rated as the 22nd best prospect in all of baseball. General Manager Jim Hendry has mentioned recently that the team wanted to bring up Castro at some point this season so that leadoff man Ryan Theriot could shift over to second base, a position he has played in the past. Mike Fontenot has been serviceable this season (hit a grand slam last night,) but he is not the second baseman of the future. The Cubs are hoping that Castro and Theriot can hold down the middle of the diamond for years to come. This sounds nice and all, but I am going to temper my enthusiasm just a bit because we all know how the last great Cub duo turned out. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Mark Prior and Kerry Wood! (If you ever want an instant, potentially violent response from a Cubs fan just mention one of three names: Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Steve Bartman.)
The Cubs look to make it two in a row tonight after pounding the Reds 14-7 in Friday night’s series opener. According to recent trends, things are looking up tonight as they have won and lost in streaks all season. Most recently they won four in a row, lost the next three, won three, then lost three more. Then there was last night’s big victory and possibly the beginning of another winning streak. The Cubs will send Tom Gorzelanny (1-3, 2.48) to the mound tonight to face Reds ace Aaron Harang (1-4, 6.68) who has had a tough time getting settled in here in the early part of the season.
