Yaaaaaaaay …. Booooooo!
I could go into Ryan Dempter’s impressive 12 strike outs in 8-1/3 innings. Or the Cubs’ sixth win in seven games, a 4-0 shutout over the Padres, Thursday. But who cares about all that. It was the first day of the Jim Edmonds era in Chicago.
So, what did we learn from Edmonds’ first day on the job?
1.) Cubs fans and Carlos Zambrano were willing to bury the hatchet with Edmonds and accept him as one of their own. He even received a standing ovation when he came up to the plate and rewarded the Cubs faithful with a base hit.
2.) Cubs fans have short-term memory. In the seventh, after Edmonds struck out on three pitches, with the bases loaded, the fans lustily booed him. Unfortunately, Zambrano didn’t do the same.
3.) After just one game, we can come to the consesus that Edmonds is just an older, whiter Felix Pie. He’s bound to make a great defensive play, but he does nothing at the plate. He left seven runners on base. Seven!
Now, it was just one game and Edmonds has been out for awhile, so the hitting may take some time to come back, but as I’ve said before I’m not the biggest fan of this deal. Even though I’ve been calling for Pie to be sent down, I didn’t want him to be replaced with another Pie, albiet one with better career credentials.
But as my parents always tell me, you can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. So basically, as long as the Cubs are winning they could put Ernie Banks in center field and I can’t complain.
