Yesterday was awful. There’s no getting around that. The beauty of the early part of the season, though, is that it works both ways. If the Pirates beat the Cubs today, they still open 2011 by taking a road series and they’ll have played three pretty good games. If that happens, yesterday’s loss is just a footnote.
It won’t be easy today, though, as Ross Ohlendorf, who’s struggled all spring, takes the mound in Matt Garza’s first start as a Cub. Garza’s the best pitcher the Cubs have trotted out this series and the Pirates didn’t exactly jump all over Zambrano yesterday. Still, I will continue to maintain that spring training is spring training and hope against hope that Ohlendorf doesn’t need 120 pitches to get through five innings before turning the ball over to some harrowing combination of Jeff Karstens, Mike Crotta, and Garrett Olson before Hurdle can use Joel Hanrahan again.
First pitch from Garza today is at 2:20 ET.
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