A Mighy Bold Prediction

"I believe this year, I can win the Cy Young," Carlos Zambrano said after pitching two shutout innings against the LA Angels.

OK, I'll buy that.  Zambrano has finished near the top of the Cy Young voting last season despite pitching for a last place team and going 0-for the month of April.

"And besides that, we will win the World Series. I guarantee that. I have faith in that."

Guaranteed?

"Right. I'm saying that," Zambrano said. "I'm almost sure about that.

Well, Zambrano may not fully understand the concept of a guarantee, but at least he's fired up.  I'd rather have that than a group of sloths.  Zambrano and Cubs fans should have many reasons so far for the opitimism.

Sure, the Cubs have gone 0-2-1 in spring training so far, but thing are looking ok.  The Cubs projected rotation, Zambrano, Marquis, and Miller, have each pitched two innings and have given up two runs, six hits, six stike outs, and no walks.  Zambrano struck out four of the seven batters he faced.  Members of the bullpen have also done well, with Ryan Demspter, Bob Howry, and Will Ohman each pitching one inning and giving up no runs.  Even Jeff Samardzija worked a scoreless inning.  Unfortunately, Carlos Marmol and Neal Cotts did not look good in their inning of work.  The Cubs are going to start Prior on Monday with Kerry Wood coming in relief.  That will be interesting to see.

After starting out slugginsh, the hitting is coming around.  Today, Michael Barret had an inside the park home run, Cedeno hit is second home run of the spring, and Ryan Theriot had a triple.Yesterday Matt Murton made a good case to keep him in the two hole, 3-for-3 with four RBIs, and a home run, and Eric Patterson, Corey's little brother, had a two run homer.

Speaking Of Barrett

Michael Barrett has emerged as a leader in the Cubs clubhouse, and a stand up guy during a time where most athletes are acting like selfish jerks.  On Friday, Barrett announced that he will donate $10,000 for every home run he hits in the 2007 regular season to Derek Lee's Project 3000, and the Cubs catcher kicked off his fund-raising efforts with an initial $50,000 donation.  Derek's little girl Jada was diagnosed with Lebers Congenital Amaurosis, which has resulted in the loss of vision in one eye. It is a rare disease that affects 3000 people.  Derek's season ended September 14th last year so he could spend time with his family.

"When he called us this offseason and offered to do this, it was touching," Lee said. "We don't even know how to thank him. It's such a great reach-out by him to our family, and not only our family, but everyone with LCA. The donation his family is going to make is going to go so far to the research department in finding a treatment and ultimately a cure."

"Beyond that, it speaks volumes of the person Michael and Stephanie [Barrett] are," Lee said. "They wanted to reach out and help. It means a lot to me to have Michael as a teammate and, more important, as a friend."

It's great to hear this type of stories after hearing all the steroid problems, shooting incidents, and athletes dumping eighty thousand dollars that make the news.  Barrett and Lee are two amazing athletes that remind people what athletes should behave like.

That didn't take long

It didn't take Lou long to get fired up.  Pretending to be all new age, Lou was all smiles and sunshine during spring training, but don't think he will be smiling when bad baseball is being played on his team.  After the Cubs committed three errors on Thursday, Lou said;

"We made three errors, and three errors scored seven runs.  Don't like to be sloppy, butat the same time, it's the first game of the spring.  I don't like the idea of throwing the ball around, even though it's spring training.  From that standpoint, I'm not pleased. Outside of that, we got our feet wet and we'll continue to work."

So was Piniella willing to give them a pass in the first game?

"It has nothing to do with a pass," he said. "What it has to do with is, if you want to win baseball games, whether it's now or three months from now, you have to make plays. That's all."

After the Cubs tied Oakland today, gonig 2-15 with runners in scoring position, Lou said

"You look at this ballgame today, and we just didn't really execute. We had runners on second base twice with no outs and couldn't get them over. The game ended up 5-5, and we could've lost the darn thing. But these are the things we're going to have to work on. I don't expect my boppers to do that, but the rest of these kids in the lineup will have to play that type of baseball if they want to stay in the lineup. That's how you win baseball games. You don't win baseball games with a two-run lead in the seventh inning hitting batters and walking people. These are the things we have to correct and find the right combinations for. That's just fact, and nothing more but fact. These are the things we have to work on. There's talent here, but we have to get it to mesh and we have to get it to execute the way you have to do to win baseball games with consistency. If not, it's just a struggle." 

Don't expect Lou to protect his players.  He is going to call you out if he is unhappy.  That is one of the reasons the Cubs fans are going to love him.

The Cubs play the White Sox tomorrow with Rich Hill going against Jon Garland.  Last time Hill faced the Sox, he got lit up like a pin ball machine, got chewed out by Ozzie Guillen, chewed out by Dusty Baker, and sent to the minors.  He came back with a vegence in September, so it'll be interesting to see how tomorrow goes.

Go Cubs!