The Cubs are 2-4 for the spring so far, and are beating the Diamondbacks 4-1 as I write this. Spring training records are always pretty much arbitrary, and indeed this year, despite the losing record, the individual performances for players who are actually going to make the roster have, by and large, been pretty good.
Let's start with Carlos Zambrano, who made his 2nd start of the spring today finishing with 3 IP
, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K. Zambrano has been notoriously shaky at the start of seasons, especially last year, so hopefully we keep seeing numbers like this as he starts to build up more innings. Certainly only 1 walk is a stat you like to see, as Z's control was kind of all over the place last year. Oh yeah, he threw in a solo home run at the plate as well.
Also pitching today was Rich Hill, who finished with a line of 3 IP, 1 ER, 0 H, 3 BB, 1 K. Ted Lilly has made one start giving up 1 run, while Jason Marquis and Jon Lieber have been a little bit shakier, giving up 2 runs each in 1 start. Ryan Dempster has pitched 5 IP and allowed 2 earned runs, so the Dempster as starter experiment is off to an okay start. Obviously it's only March 5th, and going 2-3 innings barely constitutes "starting," so I don't know how much can be read into these numbers. I don't think anything will be settled in terms of the rotation for a while yet.
Carlos Marmol, with 2 scoreless innings, has fared the best out of the contenders for closer thus far, with Bob Howry and Kerry Wood giving up 4 and 3 runs respectively between them in 2 IP each. I'm on record as saying I'd prefer Marmol for the closer's spot. Elsewhere in the 'pen, Neal Cotts, trying to come back from a season in which he got sent down to AAA, didn't do himself any favors getting rocked in an outing on Sunday in a game that I actually caught some of on TV. Shingo Takatsu's return to American baseball is off to a rocky start as well.
As for the hitters, first and foremost let's talk about Kosuke Fukudome, who's done well for himself thus far. 5 games in his Avg/OBP/Slug is .400/.600/.700, and he hit his first spring training home run. Obviously, he's not going to have a .600 OBP in the regular season, but hopefully he does get some walks on a regular basis, something that Cubs hitters have not been able to do well enough in recent years. Ryan Theriot is off to a good start as well, with 7 hits and 2 steals. People fell in love with Theriot at the beginning of last year, but kind of wavered on him towards the end of the season when he got into a hitting slump. Hopefully he can start off well again this year and keep the momentum going this time. Geovany Soto's hitting 4-for-10 thus far, after a great end to 2007, so every indication points to him being just fine as the Cubs' starting catcher this year. Felix Pie probably has the early lead for the center field job, as he's hit 2 home runs already. Derrek Lee has 2 singles in 8 ABs, but he has 4 walks as well. There's no reason to believe that he won't be as good as should be expected.
So yeah, that's what's happening so far. Obviously these are really small sample sizes for statistics, and things may be completely different come April. We'll see. Next update: Whenever I feel like. Over the weekend maybe.
Full spring stats
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