Are We There Yet?

Through 8 innings tonight, Carlos Zambrano has held the Arizona Diamonbacks to ONE hit and no runs. He's also only walked a single batter while striking out four. He has so far lowered his ERA to 2.91, which is second only to Mark Prior's 2.54 ERA for Cubs starters. What a gem of a pitcher this guy is. Prior to this game, Zambrano is 2-1 with a 1.23 ERA this August, a complete game shutout, 23 K's, 8 walks, in 22 innings. Wow.

The really amazing part about it is that Zambrano has done this with 72 pitches, 49 of which were strikes (68%). Talk about working fast. Someone find out what they've been feeding this guy and give a double serving to Kerry Wood.

Oh, and that "other guy" Zambrano is pitching against tonight? That Curt Schilling guy? He's got 14 strikeouts through 8 innings. Unfortunately for him, when they're not striking out, they're hitting them out. Sosa has 2 home runs and Aramis Ramirez has one as well.

[UPDATE:] With 2 outs in the 9th, Zambrano walked pinch hitter Carlos Baerga, gave up a single to Luis Gonzalez, then a double to Raul Mondesi to lose his 2nd career shutout (and 2nd one this month). Alex Cintron then grounded out for the third out giving the Cubs a 4-1 win. Houston lost to Cincinnati 4-3, which means the Cubs are 1/2 game back of the NL Central lead. St. Louis also lost, so they remain 1 game back.

I watched the game from the 5th inning on.

• The umpire crew was using coins to call the game.


• Aramis Ramirez is a waste of baseball talent. No wonder Pittsburgh didn't want to pay his salary. What good is a guy that can hit who doesn't think and only plays when he wants to?


• Damian Miller deserves at least half of Joe Borowski's save.


• The Cubs win demonstrates how crucial yesterday's loss was. They remain a half game back as both St. Louis and Houston won.

To our regularly scheduled programming.

Ok, so my blog turned in to an all Cubs 24/7 affair during their playoff run. But it's over now. The better team won and will go on to play the Red Sox / Yankees in the World Series. Best of luck to the Marlins.

What have we learned here?

1. Steve Bartman did nothing to ruin the Cubs chances two nights ago. Let it go.
2. Dusty Baker may be a genius when it comes to pinch hitters and motivating players, but it seems he decides to pull his starters one inning (and 3-5 runs) after the rest of us knew he was done.
3. The Cubs have a lot of decisions to make this off season. There's a lot of players who's contracts are up. It'll be interesting to see what MacPhail, Hendry, an Co. do this off season.

[UPDATE]: See http://www.futureviperowner.com/cubs/ . I've moved all baseball / Cubs blog content to this blog now.