Carlos Squared - Cubs 1 Diamondbacks 9

Game Six - Cubs 1 Diamondbacks 9
WP - Juan Gutierrez (1-0) LP - Mitch Atkins (0-1) Save - None

Two of the three pitchers the Cubs figure to depend on in the upcoming season had good outings on Monday at HoHoKam Park. Carlos Zambrano made his first spring start and struck out three of the six batters he faced. Zambrano struck out the first two batters of the game and Chad Tracy was the only batter to reach against Zambrano. Tracy walked to start the second and was erased on a 5-4-3 double play that ended the inning.

Zambrano turned the game over to Carlos Marmol in the third for his last outing for the Cubs before leaving for the WBC. Marmol struck out a pair in his inning of work, both punch-outs...the second one however was Dan Haren.

Mitch Atkins was knocked around in his second outing of the spring. He gave up 5 runs, all earned, on 4 hits and hit two batters. Chris Snyder hit his first long ball of the spring...a 3-run homer as a part of the 5-run fourth inning.

Angel Guzman was also ineffective in the ninth on Monday. Guzman gave up three runs on three hits, two doubles, with a walk in an inning of work.

The Cubs dropped their second in a row but the performances by Zambrano and Marmol were very promising...

The Cubs offense was non-existent. Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez were 1-for-7 with a walk...Lee had the hit and the walk. Soriano for his part popped out to short, flied out to left and struck out in his three trips. Ramirez grounded out and lined out to center.

Micah Hoffpauir reached on a double in the ninth and scored the Cubs only run on a double by Andres Blanco off of Daniel Schlereth (son of Mark Schlereth).

The Cubs bullpen was horrendous on Monday. Several players fighting for a job did not help their cause. Ed Campusano, Ken Kadokura, Jason Waddell and Jeff Stevens along with Angel Guzman allowed 9 runs on 12 hits with 6 walks with 3 hit batsman and only 2 strikeouts in 6 innings.

Box Score from MLB.com

Sean Marshall is scheduled to face Sean Gallagher on Tuesday at HoHoKam Park. Andrew Cashner is penciled in to make his debut against the A's.

Matt Haggard

He could have gone out there and walked 5 and gave up a few. All I'm saying, is that Z showed up in a very questionable manner with some believing his arm might not be up to par. Time will tell. This is a good first step.

Chill.

Aaron

And yet more reports about Bradley...Bruce Miles, the ESPN guys, etc., all talking about how fragile Bradley truly is....I'm telling you all, Hendry is a sucker, and a patsy. As I said before, if any of us went up to a company that we really wanted to work for after having missed a bunch of work days at our previous jobs, I'm pretty damn sure that company would ask for security to toss our ass out of the building.

Why is it then, a guy like Bradley who misses work about 50% of the time over his career, can find a job for $10 million/year?!?!?

I still hope Bradley does well, but I also hope Hendry is held accountable either way for his actions. Especially in today's economy, you CANNOT gamble with that kind of money on an uncertain commodity. It's especially damning when you consider we essentially traded away his equal in DeRosa, who was a total team player, already had the fire and accountability that Hendry and Piniella desperately sought after, was versatile, and barely missed a day of work in his career. All of that, just because he was right-handed....WOW!!!

I will never in my life understand the following decisions:

-let Wood go in favor of trading our top pitching prospect and absorbing the salary ($4.5 million) in Kevin Gregg who was far inferior to Wood. All the while, pretty much every baseball expert expected the Marlins to non-tender him anyway

-sign Gathright, spelling doom for Pie, and thus reducing his trade value

-trade Marquis for Vizcaino, only saving $4 million after Vizcaino's salary and the million we gave them

***so far, that's a net $8.5 million for those keeping track

-sign Aaron Miles for essentially $2 million per...net $6.5 million now

-trade DeRosa for 3 useless, not even ranked prospects of the Indians...net $11.5 million

-sign Bradley, net $1.5 million

-sign Bako, net $750,000

So, for a net savings of $750,000, we lost our closer in favor of our best set-up guy, thus making it worse, because Gregg is now the set-up guy, and he's just flat out mediocre, folks; our most versatile player and possibly most valuable in favor of a career role player with no power and no run producing ability in Miles; a career pinch runner at best in Gathright in favor of Pie who at least had some "ceiling" left to fulfill

I will never in my life understand those deals. All it did was make our club worse. Pie is already off to a decent start in Baltimore, and while Wood has a balky back right now (he's always had that...often sleeping with a board under the mattress at hotels), we come out FAR worse when you factor all the games Bradley will potentially miss this year and compare that to Wood and DeRosa.

I think it's a joke that Hendry and Piniella said they needed to get more left-handed. Really?

Soriano-LF (R)

Theriot-SS (R)

Lee-1B (R)

ARAM-3B (R)

Soto-C (R)

Fontenot-2B (L)

DeRosa or Hoffpauir-RF (R,L)

Pie/Fukudome-CF (L)

How in the hell is that any different than this year? Miles-weak hitting switch hitter, replaces DeRosa, Gathright-weak hitting Outfielder replaces Pie (lefty), and Bradley--barely on the field, replaces Fukudome (lefty) who basically takes over the role of Edmonds this year.

We could've saved all the brainpower and heartache that Bradley will give us by simply signing Dunn or Abreu, and just trading Marquis for a minor leaguer that breathes, and we'd be a far better team. DeRosa would assume the utility role he excelled in, and we wouldn't be downgrading offensively at any position.

But...I digress...

T Wilson

Haggard, you realize it was a 2-inning outing right? Please. The only thing Zambrano can do to silence his critics is to win at least 18 games w/ a sub 3.5 ERA. It wouldn't hurt to increase the SOs and decrease the walks either. Silencing critics after his 1st spring outing won't happen.

GaryLeeT

Matt you crack me up. You aren't really trying to suggest that 2 well pitched spring innings, means Zambrano will not have another 2nd half break down, are you? If he's healthy and 18-10 on September 1st and finally earning his ace sized paycheck, I will gladly eat a man sized portion of humble pie. However, unless he's picked up some new conditioning regiment, there is no reason to believe he won't break down even sooner this year than he did last.

agustin rexach

Gary Gaetti hitting in the 9th lol!!

Matt Haggard

Z put a lot of would-be critics to rest on Monday by pitching and doing it well.

It'll be nice for everyone to see Gally tomorrow as well. I really liked that guy.