Ah...

Well, I'm over my Illini hangover, so I figured I go over some of the things that I liked and disliked from yesterday's Cub opener. The good news? The questionable new offense clicked on all cylinders yesterday, with every Cub player, both broadcasters and Yosh Kawano getting hits off of the Diamondback pitchers. Only 5 of the Cubs 16 runs were scored via the homer, meaning, well, that the other 11 were scored in some other way. The bad news: Carlos Zambrano lost his control in the 4th inning, and lost his cool after Dusty Baker removed him, thus receiving a meaningless ejection. Some people are saying that Carlos was getting squeezed, well, over the course of the season, that's going to happen. The big guy then needs to throw that fat sinker up there, and trust his defense to get him out of the inning. Anyway, I did actually see some good in this situation, as Dusty Baker came out to retrieve Carlos with 2 out and the bases loaded in the 4th, hopefully this is a sign that Dusty isn't going to screw around with the pitchers this year. Carlos had thrown too many pitches, and I'm hoping that if Baker keeps some of these guys on shorter leashes that they'll try and conserve a little bit. Of course, I could be totally off base on my assessment, but hey, that's why they pay me the big bucks. The only way we'll know for sure is if the next time Kerry Wood has a 40 pitch 4th inning, Dusty goes out and gets him, regardless of the score.

Oh yeah, I've been watching tonight's game a little, and I've got a question for Comcast Sports Plus...would it kill you to spring for the score overlay? I sat through the whole 3rd inning (I think), not knowing the score or inning, because there was no graphic. Then after the 3rd out, extra helpful announcer Len Kasper says "and that's the end of the inning and the score is 3-2". Thanks Len, real helpful.