Yes, the Cubs won tonight.
The offense woke up and decided to score some runs.
And before I go any further, let me just say that you can boo the hell out of him all you want, but Soriano has been hitting as well, if not better than anyone else on the team right now.
Anyway, Carlos Silva, once again, pitched fantastic. He went 6 innings and gave up only 1 run. He probably could have gone another inning (he was well under 100 pitches at the time), but with a seemingly secure lead...um...oh...pig pen...oops.
Suddenly, Marshall isn't looking so hot in the bullpen. First off...he has quickly become overworked. Tonight was his 5 appearance in 7 days. He pitched a fairly decent 7th inning...but in the 8th was unable to retire a batter. It got to the point where suddenly all those antacids stopped working and my stomach started to burn because I thought the Cubs were going to blow the lead again.
Well, they didn't...ultimately Grabow, of all people, was able to shut the Mets down to end the 8th.
Marmol came in for a pointless ninth inning.
Offensively, well, the Cubs had 14 hits with three a piece from Theriot and Soriano. Soriano was only a double away from the cycle. I still think he is going to drive in over 100 runs this year. He is starting to get more comfortable in that 6th spot in the lineup.
Marlon Byrd also drove in 3 runs tonight. On a side note, the Red Sox just put Mike Cameron on the DL. Remember months ago when there were so many people who wanted the Cubs to sign Mike Cameron and how upset they were when Boston signed him instead? Byrd was supposedly the consolation prize? Um...I think we got the better deal here.
Another good thing tonight...9 walks. Soto had 3 of them. Speaking of which, Soto has an OPS of .990 right now. That's damn good.
Cubs win 9-3.
Everyone seems to be all gloom and doom right now (well before tonight's game anyway) but there are some good numbers being put up by some people right now. Really, what needs to happen is that Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee need to start hitting consistently and the bullpen (duh) needs to get straightened out. Things aren't as bad as they might seem. I still say just give it some more time.
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Tomorrow will be tough. Sloth goes up against Johan Santana. Santana is good, and in his two career starts against the Cubs, he's been dominating. The only positive I can say about the match up is that Santana is on my fantasy baseball team, which means he'll probably suck tomorrow.
With Zambrano going to the bullpen this weekend, Sloth's job in the rotation is safe for now as Ted Lilly comes back. Not sure how he'll react to this, though.
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I have two posts I want to do tomorrow before the game about two things that are disturbing me right now...Z to the bullpen and fantasy baseball...so there's something to look forward to.
