Smile, kid! You're a superstar!
(Al Behrman, Associated Press)
On a 2-2 pitch, Homer Bailey threw a hanging curve ball on the upper outside of the strike zone and Castro hit it out to right field just clearing the fence for a three run homer.
Wow.
In his second at bat, he lines out to center field, and fairly well hit ball.
In the top of the 5th, with the bases loaded, and after the Reds removed starter Homer Bailey from the game a few batters earlier, Castro takes a 3-2 pitch from Micah Owings and dumped it into that gap in left center for a 3 run triple.
There you have it...6 RBI in a debut. That's real fricken impressive. And supposedly, 6 RBI in a major league debut is a record.
So we can enshrine him Cooperstown now, right?
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The Cubs offense, overall, decided it would show up today. They scored 14 runs. Byrd hit a homer (and almost had two) and Mike Fontenot, the odd man out when Castro was promoted, took out his frustration on the first pitch he saw from Carlos Fisher and smacked it over over the fence in the right field corner for a grand slam as he pinch hit for Sean Marshall.
Carlos Silva, for the 3rd straight start didn't look all that sharp. He, luckily, didn't give up any runs until the 5th inning, but got knocked around hard as the scoring started when part-time pitcher, Micah Owings hit a two run shot to right-center. He gave up 4 runs in 5 innings of work. Berg, Russell an Marshall all pitched a shutout inning.
Then Grabow came in. He gave up 3 more runs in the ninth. His ERA is now over 9.00 and he doesn't show any signed that he is getting any better. We all knew going into this contract that he wasn't a very good control pitcher, but Grabow's bigger problem is that he has been unable to miss bats. He's just flat out getting hit hard.
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Some other notes:
The Cubs almost had 2 other homers in the 7th inning...Marlon Byrd almost knocked his second homer out to left and after review, it showed that the ball just missed being a homer as it hit off the top of the wall...and Geo Soto just miss hitting an opposite field shot that was caught buy a Cubs fan who lean out over the fence and it resulted in a ground ruled double.
Ryan Theriot looked quite comfortable at second base. I have felt for a long time that this was a position that he was better suited for. Assuming Castro is here permanently, we shouldn't have to worry about Theriot's noodle arm anymore over at shortstop.
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Back to Castro...expect tickets for Monday night's game against the Marlins to sell out now...I expect a lot of people are going to be looking forward to seeing this kid's Wrigley Field debut.
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Today, the Ogre matchup...Harang vs.Gorzelanny. I know that it's mean to say that about them...but they have had some off the ugliest MLB Gameday pictures that I have ever seen. I'll likely miss the whole game because of a track meet this evening...the Badger Twilight. I'm hoping to at least listen to part of the game on my phone during some of the longer races.
Starlinmania! Catch it!
