Early Returns

The first two Cubs games of '09 are in the books, and they'll finish out their first series tonight at Minute Maid Park in Houston. After winning the opener 4-2, the Cubs lost last night 3-2 in 10 innings. Starters Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster both looked very good for their parts, the difference being that Dempster simply got more fun support. Even if Dempster regresses a little bit from his career year last year, there's no reason to believe that this rotation won't be right near the top of the NL. Kosuke Fukudome went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and grounded into a double play in the opener, and really didn't do anything to instill confidence that his 2009 season will be more like his first half of '08 than the second. Aramis Ramirez also evoked some bad memories last night, getting thrown out with relative ease by Carlos Lee playing a ball off the wall on a hit that Aramis tried to stretch from a single to a double. Ramirez has made some pretty awful baserunning decisions in the past, but hopefully that was more a result of the somewhat odd layout of the Minute Maid Park outfield and not part of a continuing pattern.

Two games does not make a season, but just because I talked about it in my last post, I suppose I'll mention what Kevin Gregg and Carlos Marmol have done. Marmol pitched the 8th inning in the opener, and allowed just a walk which he left stranded. Gregg came in to save the game and allowed a couple of baserunner, one of which came around to score before nailing down the save. Gregg then pitched the 10th last night after Neil Cotts put two men on with no one out, and failed to get out of the job, giving up the game winning hit to Jeff Keppinger. Listening to the radio this morning, people seem to already be wringing their hands in concern over this. I'm on record as saying that I think Marmol is the better pitcher, but two games is just a wee bit too small of a time frame to be evaluating whether a change should be made. Same goes for anything that people might be concerned about, frankly. Consider that the defending champion Phillies, fielding much the same team that they won with last year, are 0-2 in their opening series against the Braves, and are losing 9-3 in the finale as I write this. Really the only reason why I am writing this is because I don't have any movies to write about at the moment. Baseball season is a loooong season.