Well at least for one day the Big Z Carlos Zambrano's arm did not fall off and the Cubs look exactly what they were last year, the class of the National League. Of course that comes with the caveat that its against the Houston Astros, a team that I believe is probably the worst in baseball, but nevertheless despite their rude booting from the playoffs against the Dodgers last year the Cubs look as strong as ever.
As I said earlier, I have a bad feeling for Cubs fans that Z is on the decline quickly. Indeed in the last two years Zambrano has seen a pretty serious decline in several peripherals, perticularly strikeouts, from 210 in 2006 to 170 in 07 and 130 last year. Granted his walks are also down fairly considerably, from 115 2006 to 70 last year, but its still a bad trend. Further, he's giving up more hits, last year at a clip of 8.2 from 6.8 in 2006. These are all signs of a pitcher getting worse, not better as he enters his eighth full season in the majors. That said, he looked very solid last night, tossing six innings with 6ks 3 walks and only giving up a run. My only concern watching him was him leaving in the seventh inning clearly wincing in pain. He later said it wasn't a big deal, but for a pitcher who as I said has shown a drop in numbers its got to worry the cubs considering how vital he is to their success.
The rest of the staff looked very good as well against the lowly Astros. The vilified Heilman came in the seventh in a two runners on and allowed a runner to score on a infield single but i thought he looked impressive with no one getting any good hacks at him. Add him into the mix of an already solid bullpen of Marmol, Jeff Samardzija, Cotts, and Kevin Gregg, who looked bad but good enough to keep Marmol in his valuable relief ace role, you have to like what you see there, even if Kerry Wood is gone.
The offense similarly looked good early and often with Soriano leading off with a home run and the rest of the lineup seemed to be clicking against the tough Oswalt, with Ramirez going deep and even backup Micah Hoffpauir, a player whom I thiink will be a vital cog for the cubs this year off the bench, got into the action.
Despite some questionable moves that this team made this off-season that may or may not pay of this year, the core of this team is still very good and very dangerous. Whether they coast to another NL Central title remains to be seen, but they certainly have the tools to do it. Time will tell.
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