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Zambrano pitches another Gem

Thursday, May 13, 2004

The Cubs finished up their nightmare series with the Dodgers by winning a laugher today, 7-3. Despite the fact that the Cubs looked more like the 2003 Tigers for the first two games, we only lost two games in LA. Dusty took my advice today and sat Corey Patterson, as well as Sammy Sosa, Todd Walker, and Michael Barrett. I typically don't like it when Baker gives a day off to half the lineup because I feel it is conceding a loss. However, the Cubs played so poorly Tuesday and Wednesday that I felt Dusty was justified in sitting virtually everyone.

Zambrano pitched another gem today, which helped the Cubs win the game. His final line was 8 innings pitched, 1 run, 0 earned, 2 hits, 11 strikeouts, and 2 walks. However, he wasn't as dominant as he has been in some of his previous starts. Between the two hits, two walks, two hit batsmen, and Aramis Ramirez error (thats what I get for praising his defense), the Baby Bull had seven base runners in eight innings. This start was impressive, but not like his last outing.

For the gullible observer, the Cubs offense seemed to break out of their funk today. However, a closer inspection of today's action reveals that the Cubs scored six runs due to horrible Hideo Nomo pitching in the second inning. Nomo couldn't get his breaking pitches over the plate (walking three in a row) and his fastball was about 83 MPH. Furthermore, Nomo has always been successful because it is difficult to pick up his pitches out of the wind-up. With runners on base all inning, pitching out of the stretch with no control sealed his fate. However, after escaping the second inning, Jose Lima shut the Cubs down for the next five innings. In the ninth, the Cubs strung together a couple of singles to score Jose Macias.

Joe Borowski pitched the ninth in what was supposed to be a warm up appearance. He proceeded to give up three hits, walk a batter, and allow two earned runs in two thirds of an inning. Dusty then pulled Borowski and brought in Hawkins who got a save and stranded both inherited runners. This of course began speculation from Chip Caray that Borowski may have lost the saver's job. I don't think he will lose the job until he blows at least two saves. Revisiting May 7th's comments, take a look at Borowski's statistics in save situations, vs. non-save situations. The bottom line on a closer is save conversion ratio, and Borowski is still perfect. However, his overall numbers are horrible.

Posted by Byron at May 13, 2004 12:00 AM | | |

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